Are you a university graduate who's proud to be one of the top 20% of your cohort?

Or were you in the top 10% of the PSLE cohort offered to take Higher Mother Tongue Language*?

Or maybe you were invited to join the Gifted Education Programme, which means you're in the top 1%?

Gasp.

But I hope the good feeling (and arrogance perhaps?) lasts into adulthood.

Now, go compare your current earning power with the income benchmarks below.

The numbers for annual income are based on the latest Iras report (see Compare Your Income), while the net worth values are calculated based on a rule of thumb (see Calculate Net Worth).

For example, if you are in your mid-thirties and make $94k per annum, you are at the bottom of the top 20%. This is arguably equivalent to a PSLE student just making it to a SAP school in 1995.

That's not all. If your net worth is below $329k (use this tool to calculate), you are not a wealth accumulator.



* HMTL cutoff was subsequently relaxed to 20% in 1995 and 30% in 1999.

http://www.salary.sg/2007/income-benchmarks/