OECD household income falls in the fourth quarter of 2020, but grows overall during COVID affected year
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6 May 2021 – Real household income per capita, which provides a better picture of people’s economic well-being than GDP, fell by 1.4% in the OECD area in the fourth quarter of 2020. This decline occurred despite a continued rise in real GDP per capita for the OECD area by 1.0%, following the sharp increase by 9.2% recorded in the previous quarter. Cumulatively however, since 2019 Q4, real household income per capita increased by 2.0% in the OECD area, while real GDP per capita declined by 3.4%.
Overall, the decline of 1.4% is the largest quarterly decline in real household income per capita since 2013 Q1 and reflects many governments across OECD countries reducing the level of COVID related transfer payments to households, after the unprecedented levels of support provided earlier in 2020.
Source: OECD Household Dashboard: cross country comparisons
- Compare your country using the OECD dashboard of household statistics
- Links to underlying data:
> Household Dashboard for quarterly growth rates of real household income per capita and real GDP for all OECD countries (when available) and geographic groupings.
> Non-financial accounts by economic sector for the full set of non-financial quarterly sector accounts
