In 2023 we launched the Ghana Earnings and Savings Survey (GESS 1) to gain an idea of the earnings and savings levels of people in the country. With 1800 respondents, the results indicated that 55% of respondents were making less than GH¢5,000 when you combine all their income sources. You can read the detailed results here.

For 2024 we have once again collaborated with Alfred Appiah, a Canada-based data scientist, to launch GESS 2 to update the results of GESS 1. After two weeks of launching the survey, we want to share the initial results to encourage people to share the survey and help us get more representative results.

Before you check out the results, please do us a favour and take the survey below to help us get more representative results.

The first results from 505 respondents shows that 47% of respondents make less than GH¢5,000/month compared to 55% in GESS 1. These are presented in the chart labeled GESS 2 Preliminary: 1.

The preliminary results also indicate that 36% of respondents have zero months’ equivalent of expenses saved up compared to 39% from GESS 1. Also 29% of participants have between 1-3 months’ of expenses saved up compared to 31% in GESS 1. These results are presented in the chart labeled GESS 2 Preliminary: 2.

The final chart we will share for now is how much in savings (including pensions but excluding physical assets) that people have. This is presented in GESS 2 Preliminary: 3. The results indicate that 44% of respondents have less than GH¢10,000 saved up compared to 52% of respondents in GESS 1.

As these figures are preliminary, we draw no conclusions on the data. We are seeking to reach at least 2000 respondents in order to be able to draw comparative conclusions. We would appreciate you taking the survey and sharing widely. We will be back with full results by the end of July 2024.