Data lab
Top 10% Share Data Lab
What share of survey income or consumption accrues to the highest 10%, and are the available years actually comparable?
Live data panel
Compare available observations
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Definition and units
Indicator SI.DST.10TH.10 is the percentage share of income or consumption accruing to the highest 10% of people in the survey distribution. It is not consistently “national income,” and it is not the share of wealth.
Check the year: Household surveys are intermittent. Do not compare cards as though differently dated values describe the same moment.
Check the welfare concept: Some underlying surveys measure income and others consumption; metadata must be consulted before a strong cross-country claim.
Check coverage: Survey design, nonresponse and undercoverage of very high incomes can affect the top share.
What this indicator cannot tell you
A top-decile share is not a Gini coefficient and says little about differences within the top 10%, wealth concentration or mobility. Sparse points should not be joined into a confident annual narrative, and the chart alone cannot attribute a change to policy.
Try it yourself
First verify whether two displayed observations use comparable years and welfare concepts. If they do not, write a data-quality note instead of ranking the countries.
Source and retrieval
The page requests live World Bank observations and stores no fixed snapshot. Review the API response example, indicator page, and metadata definition. Record each observation year, survey basis and retrieval date.