Judged in an international context, Ireland is a high income country. The 2014 United Nations Human Development Report ranks Ireland as having the 28th highest gross national income per person in the world – with an average income at almost two and a half times the world average. Data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that average incomes, also measured as gross national income per person, stood at €32,599 in 2013 – a historically high figure, though lower than the peaks achieved in the years immediately before the recent economic recession.
However, while overall averages are interesting, they assume an equal distribution of income across the population. In reality, income is not so evenly spread.
My article in the most recent edition of Working Notes, published by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, deals with the recent history of Ireland’s income distribution. Over the past decade, there have been significant improvements in the regularity with which income distribution data have been collected and published, and these sources serve as the basis for the analysis in the article. Overall, the story is one of limited change in the structure of the distribution, although incomes notably declined in the recession. However, beneath the headline indicators there lies an important story of growing divides in earned income and the growing role which the State plays in countering this inequality through the redistributive system.