The information is in the following table.
£ Before housing costs After housing costs Bottom quartile Top quartile Bottom quartile Top quartile 1996-97 155 512 103 412 1997-98 157 520 105 419 1998-99 160 535 108 433 1999-2000 166 538 112 443 2000-01 174 562 118 466 2001-02 183 589 128 485 2002-03 185 584 130 493 2003-04 187 599 132 506 2004-05 191 596 135 510 2005-06 191 606 134 524 Notes: 1. The information shown is for the United Kingdom from 2002-03 onwards. Earlier years are Great Britain only. 2. The income measures used to derive the estimates shown employ the same methodology as the Department for Work and Pensions publication ‘Households Below Average Income’ (HBAI) series, which uses disposable household income, equivalised for household size and composition, as a proxy for standard of living. 3. Median incomes within the relevant quartiles have been presented. We have used median rather than mean as a measure of average incomes within the quartile. This is in line with the HBAI publication, where medians are used because the mean will be heavily influenced by the small number of households having very high or very low incomes. 4. Figures have been presented on both a before housing cost and an after housing cost basis. For before housing cost, housing costs (such as rent, water rates, mortgage interest payments, structural insurance payments and ground rent and service charges) are not deducted from income, while for after housing cost they are. This means that after housing cost incomes will generally be lower than before housing cost. 5. Amounts in the tables have been rounded to the nearest pound sterling. Source: Family Resources Survey, 2005-06
The figures show that households with dependent children in the lowest quartile and highest quartile of incomes have both seen their incomes grow over the last decade. Those families with dependent children in the lowest quartile have seen their incomes grow by a greater extent than those in the highest quartile.