Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified timeframe, that is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings received... in a given period of time."
For firms, income generally refers to "net-profit"—what remains of revenue total after expenses have been subtracted. In the field of public economics, the term may refer to the accumulation of both monetary and non-monetary consumption ability, with the former (monetary) being used as a proxy for total income.
Read more about Income: Increase in Income, Economic Definitions, Income Inequality, Income in Philosophy and Ethics, Accountancy
Famous quotes containing the word income:
“The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property.... Let no man get by inheritance, or by will, more than will produce at four per cent interest an income ... of fifteen thousand dollars] per year, or an estate of five hundred thousand dollars.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“Work though we must, our jobs do not automatically determine our priorities concerning our marriages, our children, our social life, or even our health. It’s still life, constrained as it may be by limited disposable income or leisure time, and we’re still responsible for making it something we enjoy or endure.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)