Buying food (illustrative)
Buying food (illustrative)Israel news photo: Flash 90

Israel's poor are not getting ahead -but they are not falling behind, either, new numbers from the Central Bureau of Statistics show. In 2013, Israel's top earners made 8.5 times those on the lowest income level, the CBS said, a statistic that has been more or less consistent for the past two decades.

The numbers show that the top ten percent of Israeli income earners took home 23% of all income in the country, while the bottom 10% earned just 2.7% of the money.

The average income for all Israeli families in 2013 was NIS 17,711, before taxes and deductions, with the net income NIS 14,622. Spending averaged NIS 11,681 per household in 2013. Per capita income in 2013 was NIS 5,400, up from NIS 5,096 in 2012. Three quarters of household income in 2013 was derived from salaries and payments for labor, while 12% came from dividends, interest, and other payments. The rest gave from government transfer payments and pensions.

The largest expense for Israeli households is on housing. On average, households spend NIS 3,429 on rent or mortgage payments, averaging 23.7% of total spending. Transportation and communication costs, averaging NIS 2,898 (20% of spending) was in second place, followed by outlays on food, which averaged NIS 2,424, or 16.7% of total spending, a month.