Income in the DR Congo
The median income in the DR Congo is about $1.18 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 2% of everyone alive. Half of the DR Congo lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the top 2% of the DR Congo.
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The curve
Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.
What it takes to stand where
Take-home income per person, in today's CDF, at each point on the curve of the DR Congo (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of the DR Congo | CDF 192,714 | $0.49 |
| 25% of the DR Congo | CDF 297,313 | $0.76 |
| 50% of the DR Congo | CDF 463,141 | $1.18 |
| 75% of the DR Congo | CDF 767,323 | $1.96 |
| 90% of the DR Congo | CDF 1,295,225 | $3.30 |
| 99% of the DR Congo | CDF 5,104,364 | $13 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in the DR Congo
How much of the DR Congo and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.
| Level | per day (PPP $) | What tends to come with it, worldwide | DR Congo | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | 88% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 10% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 2% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | <1% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a dayDR Congo 88% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a dayDR Congo 10% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a dayDR Congo 2% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a dayDR Congo <1% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 88% of the DR Congo lives on Level 1, under $3.00 a day per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
In the DR Congo, 95% lived under the $3.00 line at the 2004 survey; 85% at the 2020 one — a fall of 9 points in 16 years.
Share of the DR Congo under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.
Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.
Who earns what in the DR Congo
8 portraits, not payroll data: each stands roughly where that kind of work typically earns on the curve of the DR Congo.
| the lowest 10% | the earnings of a subsistence farmer on the river plain |
|---|---|
| 10–25% | the earnings of a charcoal seller — the city cooks on her shoulders |
| 25–45% | the earnings of a moto-taxi rider in Kinshasa |
| 45–65% | the earnings of a market wholesaler |
| 65–82% | the earnings of a schoolteacher — chalk, a register, and eighty pupils |
| 82–93% | the earnings of a mobile-network engineer in Kinshasa — seventeen million people, always calling |
| 93–98% | the earnings of a mining engineer in Katanga |
| the highest 2% | the earnings of a trading-house owner — the river is a highway |
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Where this comes from
The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for the DR Congo (survey year 2020), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.
Neighbours on the curve
The countries whose median income sits nearest to the DR Congo's — and a few far from it, for scale.