By Bae Keun-min
Staff Reporter

The urban household income grew at a four-year low of 5.3 percent last year to 2.93 million won.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) reported on Monday that after adjusting for inflation, average income grew by 1.6 percent to 2.61 million won last year, also the lowest growth in four years.

The NSO announced the report after a survey of 3,600 urban households. Inflation rose by 3.6 percent last year, compared with 2.7 percent in 2002, 4.1 percent in 2001 and 2.3 percent in 2000.

The urban household spent 2.28 million won per month last year, up 6.8 percent from 2002. This means that urbanites’ spending grew faster than their income. In 2002, their monthly spending grew by 3.8 percent, 3 percentage points lower than 2003.

The inflation-adjusted expenditure stood at 1.75 million won in 2003, up 2.4 percent from a year ago, higher than 1.6 percent in 2002.

In particular, spending on education, transportation and medical services grew by 6 percent, higher than their overall spending growth rate.

``Urban workers seemed to have hard times, as spending grew faster than income. In addition, income growth was slowed down due to the economic slowdown,’’ NSO director Kwon Oh-sool said.

The Gini coefficient, which shows the income disparity in society, improved to 0.306, down from 0.312 in 2002, thanks to strong performance of middle-class households. The Gini coefficient is zero if the income distribution of a society is completely equal.

However, urban households in the top 20 percent income bracket earned 5.22 times as much as those in the bottom 20 percent last year, up from 5.18 times recorded from a year ago. The former made 5.7 million won per month while the latter earned 1.09 million won. Moreover, the income of the bottom 20 percent rose by 2.3 percent to 1.13 million won against the 7.3 percent growth rate in spending.

Households whose breadwinners held masters degrees, recorded 4.84 million won in monthly income last year, 2.4 times larger than the those with no higher education, whose income was 1.99 million won.

The income of those that finished elementary school was 2.01 million won, while middle-school graduate and high-school graduate households earned 2.28 million won and 2.68 million won per month, respectively. College graduates earned 3.66 million won per month.

kenbae@koreatimes.co.kr