Income inequality (Gini / S80-S20)

Known criticisms of this statistic

Every statistic embodies method choices, and the substantive critiques of those choices are part of understanding the number. These are documented positions — each linked to who makes it. Listing a criticism is not endorsing it; we take no side.

• Register-based income statistics miss almost a fifth of household disposable income (retained business earnings, income in kind, parts of pension flows). CBS research applying full national-accounts coverage raises the disposable-income Gini from 0.289 to 0.337 — inequality is larger than this series shows.

  — Arjan Bruil (CBS researcher), Review of Income and Wealth 2023; confirmed by CBS · CBS: new research improves our understanding of inequality

• An income Gini alone paints a benign picture of the Netherlands: CBS's wealth Gini for the same year is about 0.71 (roughly 0.65 when pension entitlements are counted in) against 0.285 for income. Reading this figure as 'Dutch inequality' understates the gap in what households own.

  — CBS (its own wealth-inequality statistics) · CBS: income inequality well below EU average — with the wealth Gini

• The very top of the distribution is not fully captured: self-reported and even register data understate top incomes, and reconstructions from fiscal data show more concentration at the top than the headline suggests.

  — WID.world / Wiemer Salverda (University of Amsterdam) · WID.world: top incomes in the Netherlands

Source & method

Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.