April 3rd, 2012 by Hafiz Noor Shams
There are a lot of conversations about income these days. In Malaysia, the conversations also get a bit racial sometimes. But how did it look like over the past years?
The following describes the average Malaysian household monthly income (pre-tax) according to ethnicity:
This is in nominal ringgit, i.e. it does not account for inflation.
I believe this (the total series) should be read with my entry on 2010 average household expenditure (which states that average nominal expenditure was RM2,200) and the 1999 average household expenditure according to income class. That is especially so to clear up the disagreement about saving and investment that was brought up in the comment section of the former entry, i.e. expenditure does not equal income and that means saving or investment activities are not included as part of expenditure. As you can see, 2010 expenditure for an average Malaysian household was about RM2,200. Compare that to the 2009 income, which was RM4,000. The more or less RM1,800 difference between the expenditure and income is likely either saving or investment.