Top actors get 330 times more pay than the least-paid
In Korea’s TV and movie industry, the income gap between top actors and those with minor roles is up to $140,000 a month. In the historic drama “May 18” (2007), in which Kim Sang-kyung, Lee Yo-won and Lee Joon-gi had lead roles, Park Won-sang (far left in front) and Park Chul-min played supporting roles. / A scene from “May 18”
By Ko Dong-hwan
The income gap among Korean actors is notoriously divided between the top one percent and the rest, with their monthly wages varying by up to 159 million won ($140,000), according to a lawmaker on Tuesday.
Among 15,870 actors last year, the top one percent earned an average 2 billion 8 million won a year, while the top 10 percent earned an average of 367 million won a year. The top 10’s annual incomes accounted for 86.8 percent of actors’ total earnings.
The annual income of the other actors was 6.2 million won, or slightly over 500,000 won a month, hardly enough to pay the monthly rent of a bachelor apartment in Seoul.
Rep. Park Kwang-on of the Democratic Party of Korea released the statistics provided by the National Tax Service, which contained the incomes of actors, models and singers.
There was also extreme inequality in the incomes of models and singers.
The top one percent out of 4,667 singers earned in average of more than 4.2 billion won a year. Their total incomes accounted for 52 percent of the total income reported by the profession. The bottom 90 percentile earned 8.7 million won a year on average.
The bottom 90 percentile of 8,210 models earned the lowest amount of 2.7 million a year on average, while the top one percent each earned 544 million won a year on average.