That data shows that only 1 per cent of Australians earned more than $210,100 per year, up from a cutoff point of $194,400 the year before.

Only 0.1 per cent of Australians earned more than $688,700 per year.

The data shows inequity climbing for the second consecutive year after sliding during the global financial crisis. In 2010-11 the top 1 per cent of earners took home 9.2 per cent of Australian income, up from 8.6 per cent two years before. In 2006, before the crisis hit, the take exceeded 10 per cent.

''The global financial crisis was just a small deviation from a big long-term trend,'' Dr Leigh said. ''In just about every English speaking country in the world inequality has been climbing since the early 1980s.''

Incomes were least equal in 1950 when the top 1 per cent of Australian earners took home 14 per cent of the nation's pay packet. ''It was the Korean War wool boom,'' Dr Leigh says. ''In that year an astonishing 90 per cent of the top group were farmers.''