TL;DR
Put average take-home pay and a modeled solo cost of living side by side, and Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand can look as if the average worker is doomed to run a monthly deficit.
That immediately raises a reasonable question:
“So are people surviving because everyone lives with family and shares expenses?”
Shared housing and family households do matter. But that is only part of the answer.
The bigger issue is that the original numbers describe different things.
- Cost-of-living site: a modeled budget for one person renting and living alone
- Salary figure: typical take-home pay for an employee
- Official household statistics: income and spending actually recorded for residents or households
So the first table was never a household cash-flow statement for the average local resident.
It was closer to making a solo-renter budget fight an employee salary and declaring a winner.
Official data paints a very different picture. Vietnam's 2024 household living standards survey reported average income of about VND 5.4 million per person per month and living expenditure of about VND 2.8 million. Thailand's 2025 household survey reported monthly household income of THB 28,308 and expenditure of THB 22,420. China reported 2025 per-capita disposable income of CNY 43,377 a year and consumption expenditure of CNY 29,476. In Japan, two-or-more-person worker households in 2025 had average monthly disposable income of JPY 532,408 and consumption expenditure of JPY 346,297.
That is not a picture of entire countries routinely spending more than they earn.
Indonesia needs an extra warning label: the wage statistic is per employee, while the expenditure statistic is per resident, including children, older people, and non-employees. Subtracting one from the other would be statistically invalid.
The real subject of this article is therefore not a cost-of-living ranking. It is a reminder that a clean-looking table can create an alternate universe when its denominators do not match.
First, the comparison-site numbers really do look like a deficit
Using Livingcost figures updated June 21, 2026:
| Country | Average take-home salary | Solo cost of living incl. rent | Salary ÷ cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | $289 | $543 | 0.53 |
| Vietnam | $428 | $637 | 0.67 |
| Thailand | $620 | $882 | 0.70 |
| China | $868 | $663 | 1.31 |
| Japan | $1,914 | $1,109 | 1.73 |
Read literally, the first three countries look impossible. Indonesia appears short by $254 a month, Vietnam by $209, and Thailand by $262.
National Deficit Festival, every month, forever.
If this were an RPG where everyone's HP dropped at the end of every month, the server would have been empty years ago.
Reality is not doing that.
The problem is that the cost figure is not the average amount actually spent by local residents. Livingcost is useful for relocation and city comparisons, but it builds a modeled budget, including the cost of securing housing for one person. That assumption differs sharply from living in a family-owned home, sharing housing, living outside expensive urban centers, or splitting utilities and durable goods across several people.
The defensible conclusion from this table is only:
“In some countries, the site's modeled solo lifestyle costs more than the average take-home salary.”
It does not prove that the average resident runs a monthly cash deficit.
“Average salary” and “solo living cost” are not the same statistical matchup
The most common international-comparison mistake is not bad arithmetic. It is ignoring the label attached to the number.
These are different measures:
- average wage,
- income per capita,
- household income,
- disposable income.
So are these:
- modeled solo cost of living,
- actual per-capita consumption,
- household expenditure,
- consumption expenditure,
- spending measures that may exclude financial transactions such as mortgage principal repayment.
Compress all of them into two columns named “salary” and “living cost” and the table becomes wonderfully simple.
It also becomes semantically broken.
The spreadsheet will not complain. The denominator police will.
For that reason, this article uses Livingcost only to illustrate the solo-living model, then turns to official statistics to understand actual household conditions.
Official household data changes the picture
The latest or most internally consistent official figures available for each country look like this:
| Country | Income side | Spending side | Directly comparable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | Aug. 2025 average employee wage: about IDR 3.33m/month | Mar. 2025 average expenditure: about IDR 1.57m/person/month | No: employee vs resident |
| Vietnam | 2024 income: about VND 5.4m/person/month | 2024 living expenditure: about VND 2.8m/person/month | Relatively clean |
| Thailand | 2025 household income: THB 28,308/month | 2025 household expenditure: THB 22,420/month | Mostly, but income includes in-kind income |
| China | 2025 disposable income: CNY 43,377/person/year | 2025 consumption: CNY 29,476/person/year | Relatively clean |
| Japan | 2025 disposable income of 2+ person worker households: JPY 532,408/month | Consumption: JPY 346,297/month | Comparable within that household definition |
Do not turn this table into a league table from first to fifth place.
The surveys use different concepts, populations, and accounting conventions. Its purpose is narrower: to test the claim that locals are “on average in deficit every month.”
Vietnam: the cleanest case showing that the apparent deficit is not real
Vietnam's General Statistics Office reported in the 2024 Household Living Standards Survey that average monthly income was about VND 5.4 million per person.
Average monthly living expenditure was about VND 2.8 million per person.
On a simple ratio, living expenditure was roughly 52% of income. Food spending was around VND 1.4 million, with non-food spending also above VND 1.4 million.
Livingcost, meanwhile, showed a $428 take-home salary against a $637 solo-living budget.
Those results are not contradictory.
They measure different things.
One is a modeled amount for a solo household. The other measures what residents actually received and spent.
Think of it as confusing a game's recommended power level with the power level players actually used to clear the stage.
Thailand: THB 28,308 in, THB 22,420 out
Thailand's National Statistical Office reported average household income of THB 28,308 per month and average household expenditure of THB 22,420 per month in the 2025 Household Socio-Economic Survey.
The gap is THB 5,888.
But it would still be sloppy to say, “Great, the average household saves exactly THB 5,888 in cash every month.”
The income measure includes non-monetary income. In 2025 that component was THB 4,122 per month. Total expenditure also differs from consumption expenditure, which was THB 19,482.
So “income minus expenditure” is not necessarily the exact amount deposited into a bank account.
Even with that caveat, it looks nothing like the impression created by “average salary $620, solo living cost $882.”
China: consumption is about 68% of disposable income
China's National Bureau of Statistics reported 2025 per-capita disposable income of CNY 43,377 and per-capita consumption expenditure of CNY 29,476.
Monthly equivalents are approximately:
- disposable income: CNY 3,615,
- consumption expenditure: CNY 2,456,
- difference: CNY 1,158.
Consumption is about 68% of disposable income.
Again, the difference should not automatically be labeled “cash savings.” It may be allocated to saving, investment, and other non-consumption uses.
China was already above break-even in the Livingcost comparison, and the official data also shows average disposable income exceeding average consumption expenditure.
Japan: the household survey shows a 65% average propensity to consume
Japan's 2025 Family Income and Expenditure Survey reported, for worker households with two or more people, monthly disposable income of JPY 532,408 and consumption expenditure of JPY 346,297.
The survey's reported surplus was JPY 186,111, while the average propensity to consume was 65.0%.
But this is not “the average Japanese person's monthly budget.”
The population is specifically worker households with two or more members.
Single-person households and other household types are not represented by the same figure.
The lesson is not “everyone in Japan has JPY 186,111 left over.” It is: read the survey population before using the number.
The denominator police do not get holidays just because the country changed.
Indonesia: do not calculate “3.33m minus 1.57m = 1.76m left over”
Statistics Indonesia reported an average employee wage of about IDR 3.33 million per month in August 2025.
Separately, average monthly expenditure per capita was about IDR 1.57 million in March 2025.
The tempting calculation is:
3.33m − 1.57m = 1.76m left over.
Do not do it.
The wage denominator is employees. The expenditure denominator is all residents.
The latter includes children, retirees, people without jobs, self-employed workers, informal workers, and others.
If two earners support a four-person household, an employee wage cannot be subtracted from household spending divided by four and interpreted as that employee's personal surplus.
Indonesia also has a large informal labor market, which makes an employee-wage-only view particularly incomplete.
So the Indonesian numbers are shown as context, not used to manufacture a fake “monthly surplus.”
A complete table is not worth breaking the statistics for.
So how much does “living with family” actually help?
Back to the original question: does sharing a home make the economics work better?
Yes, directionally it does.
Using the same Livingcost model, dividing the modeled cost for a family of four by four produces a much lower per-person figure than living alone:
| Country | One person | Family of four, total | Family of four, per person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | $543 | $1,292 | $323 |
| Vietnam | $637 | $1,661 | $415 |
| Thailand | $882 | $2,288 | $572 |
| China | $663 | $1,807 | $452 |
| Japan | $1,109 | $2,719 | $680 |
Four people do not normally need four refrigerators, four kitchens, four Wi-Fi connections, and four separate sets of every household durable.
Housing, utilities, appliances, connectivity, and other fixed costs have economies of scale.
That is why per-person costs naturally fall when people share a household.
But this table is still a Livingcost model. It does not prove the actual share of multigenerational households in each country.
Use it to illustrate the mechanics of cost sharing, not as demographic evidence.
Family living still does not explain everything
1. Housing arrangements differ
Family-owned homes, owner-occupied housing, employer housing, rural homes, and shared apartments do not carry the same cost as a market-rate solo rental.
A solo-renter model erases those differences.
2. Shopping channels differ
Prices at malls, tourist zones, foreigner-friendly supermarkets, ride-hailing services, or international chains are not necessarily the prices households face at local markets, neighborhood stores, canteens, or street vendors.
“Cheap or expensive on vacation” is not the same as “household cost of living.”
3. Capitals are not countries
Bangkok, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, and Tokyo can cost far more than smaller cities and rural areas.
Using capital-city prices for an entire national population is an efficient way to summon a country that does not exist.
4. Salary is not the only household resource
Households may receive income from several earners, self-employment, remittances, pensions, transfers, or in-kind benefits.
One salaried employee's pay is not automatically the entire household budget.
5. In-kind consumption exists
Home-produced food, goods supplied by employers or governments, and imputed housing services may be treated differently across statistical systems.
Two columns both labeled “income” or “expenditure” can still contain different accounting concepts.
A safer order for comparing international living costs
When comparing another set of countries, use this sequence:
- Who is measured? Individual, employee, household, or per-capita resident.
- Before or after tax? Do not mix gross wage with disposable income.
- Observed or modeled? Household survey data is not the same as an estimated lifestyle budget.
- Does it include housing? Rent can reorder the entire ranking.
- National or city-level? Do not mix a capital with a national average.
- Same period? Wages, inflation, and exchange rates move.
- Only then calculate ratios. Match definitions before dividing one number by another.
A “salary ÷ living cost” ratio looks satisfyingly clean.
Statistics may be screaming underneath it.
Conclusion: people are not all in deficit; the original table was running a solo-play challenge
The original reaction was completely logical.
If Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand show “average salary < solo cost of living,” the obvious response is:
“Then how does anyone survive?”
The answer is not that entire populations are permanently spending more than they earn.
The answer is that the modeled lifestyle in the comparison table differs from the way local households actually live.
Sharing a household lowers fixed costs. Owner-occupied or family-owned housing changes housing expenses. Local purchasing channels change prices. More than one person may contribute income to a household. And official surveys measure actual income and spending differently from relocation-oriented websites.
Most importantly, official data for Vietnam, Thailand, China, and Japan does not show the same “average household is structurally underwater every month” story. Indonesia's wage and expenditure measures cannot be directly subtracted because their denominators differ.
So the first table was not useless. It was simply answering a different question.
- Budgeting for a solo move → a cost-of-living comparison site can be useful.
- Understanding how locals actually live → use official household statistics.
- Comparing financial headroom across countries → harmonize definitions and units first.
Do not mistake a foreigner's solo-play guide for the local population's save file.
That is the punchline.
Sources
- Livingcost, Indonesia — https://livingcost.org/cost/indonesia
- Livingcost, Vietnam — https://livingcost.org/cost/vietnam
- Livingcost, Thailand — https://livingcost.org/cost/thailand
- Livingcost, China comparison data — https://livingcost.org/cost/china/vietnam
- Livingcost, Japan comparison data — https://livingcost.org/cost/japan/thailand
- Statistics Indonesia, Labour Situation August 2025 — https://www.bps.go.id/en/pressrelease/2025/11/05/2479/keadaan-ketenagakerjaan-.html
- Statistics Indonesia, average monthly expenditure per capita table — https://www.bps.go.id/en/statistics-table/3/VTJaSFFtWklXVnBYZVdSREwyczJlbm93UWpVM1FUMDkjMw%3D%3D/rata-rata-pengeluaran-per-kapita-sebulan-menurut-kelompok-komoditas-dan-daerah-tempat-tinggal-rupiah-.html
- General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2024 Household Living Standards Survey — https://www.nso.gov.vn/tin-tuc-thong-ke/2025/05/thong-cao-bao-chi-ket-qua-khao-sat-muc-song-dan-cu-nam-2024/
- National Statistical Office of Thailand, 2025 Household Socio-Economic Survey — https://www.nso.go.th/nsoweb/storage/survey_detail/2026/20260505141117_96690.pdf
- National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025 Residents' Income and Consumption Expenditure — https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202601/t20260120_1962356.html
- Statistics Bureau of Japan, Family Income and Expenditure Survey 2025 — https://www.stat.go.jp/data/kakei/sokuhou/tsuki/pdf/fies_gaikyo2025.pdf
