Top 0.1% of Bonuses, Annual 690 Million KRW... "Bonus Polarization Too"

158 Times the Median Value... Widening Gap Between Top and Bottom 20%

Among salaried workers who received bonuses, the average annual 'bonus' for the top 0.1% in terms of amount received was found to be 690 million KRW.

Photo by Yongjun Cho jun21@

According to the 'Bonus Percentile Data' obtained from the National Tax Service by Yang Kyung-sook, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, 9,799,285 workers reported bonuses in 2022. Among them, the average bonus for workers in the top 0.1% by amount received was 685.26 million KRW.

This corresponds to 157.9 times the median value (4.34 million KRW). The median value is the bonus amount received by the worker in the middle when the bonus amounts are arranged in descending order.

The average bonus for the top 0.1% increased from 548.85 million KRW in 2020 to 666.06 million KRW in 2021. Over the two years from 2020 to 2022, it rose by 24.9%.

The median value increased by 7.1% over two years, from 4.05 million KRW in 2020 to 4.33 million KRW in 2021, which was lower than the growth rate of the top 0.1%.

As a result, the ratio of the top 0.1% bonus to the median value increased from 135.5 times in 2020 to 153.9 times in 2021.

In 2022, the average bonus for the top 1% was 171.18 million KRW, and for the top 10%, it was 57.86 million KRW.

The share of total bonuses received by the top earners also increased.

The share of bonuses received by the top 0.1% rose from 5.8% in 2020 to 6.2% in 2022, while the top 1%'s share increased from 14.6% to 15.4%.

During the same period, the share of the top 10% increased from 48.6% to 52.0%, surpassing half of the total bonuses.

The gap between the top 20% and the bottom 20% in bonus amounts also widened. The top 20% received an average bonus of 39.27 million KRW, which was 105.6 times higher than the bottom 20% (370,000 KRW). In 2021, the gap was 101.9 times.

Yang Kyung-sook said, "Companies with poor business performance due to the economic downturn are likely unable to pay bonuses," adding, "Polarization in bonuses is becoming more evident, just like the wage gap among salaried workers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.