Business Media Georgia (BMG) requested information from the Revenue Service on the income of the population, which shows that 1.17 million citizens received wages during 2020 in Georgia, which was 48 thousand more compared to 2019. The highest growth was observed on the lowest salary groups (up to GEL 100). Decrease was noted in the salary groups up to GEL 1000.
According to the data of the Revenue Service, in 2020, 191 thousand citizens received less than GEL 1,200 per year as taxable income, which is equal to a maximum of GEL 100 per month.
On the contrary, the number of those who have a monthly income of more than GEL 5,000 is modest and their share amounts to 0.7% of the total population. Only 0.3% of the population has a salary income of more than GEL 100,000 per year (GEL 8333 per month).
In 2020, a total of GEL 15.2 billion was spent on salaries in Georgia. According to the calculation, average salary per capita amounts to GEL 1200, but it represents the arithmetic average. The average salary is better reflected in the "median salary". According to the mathematical analysis of the data, it equals to GEL 800.
Most likely, some of the people who earned less than GEL 3,600 a year (GEL 300 per month) are actually seasonally employed. In addition, the information provided does not include the so-called "informal employment" statistics, which mostly include self-employed people in the agricultural sector.
Statistics of the Revenue Service also show that there is almost no middle class in Georgia. If we compare these rates with similar statistics of a developed country, we will see that the largest income group there is not the poorest people, so the largest share accounts for the middle-income group. Such distribution of income is typical for the poorer developing countries.
