The distribution of wages and employee incomes in Slovenia, 1991–2009

This paper analyses the distribution of employee income in Slovenia in the period 1991–2009. The analysis is based on two different datasets, both derived from the personal income tax files. It was shown that income inequality of employees income has somewhat increased in this period, using the Gini coefficient as the indicator of income inequality. Though increases in income inequality were moderate according to this summary measure, rather largest changes did occur at the very top of the income distribution, i.e. top 5 per cent and top one per cent of employees. Income inequality of employees’ net income (i.e. net of employee social contributions and personal income tax) remained fairly stable in this time period. In other words, the changes in personal income tax dampened to a large degree the effects of increasing inequality in the distribution of employee gross income. This was also established using the Kakwani index of progressivity. Increases in progressivity of the personal income tax came in leaps, mostly following the introduction of new income tax legislation.