My attention was drawn to the letter published in Kaieteur News titled “A reality check on Guyana’s household income transformation narrative.” I welcome the engagement, particularly from an individual who appears to be well credentialed and respected — at least implicitly so, based on how he presents himself. However, I must admit that I have never heard of him, read about him, encountered his work, or seen any contribution attributable to him in either the local research domain or wider academic domains that one would ordinarily expect from someone positioning himself as an authority on such matters.
That said, I approached his letter with an open mind, expecting a serious technical critique of SphereX’s household income analysis—one that interrogates the methodology, challenges the data sources, and produces counter-estimates using official datasets. Unfortunately, what was presented is not a reality check, not a methodological rebuttal, and certainly not an evidence-based counter analysis. It is instead a collection of conjectures and generalized assertions, unsupported by any independent computations or formal replication of the findings he seeks to discredit.
Let me state this plainly: a critique without replication is not research—it is commentary. And commentary, no matter how loudly written, does not invalidate evidence.
The op-ed published by SphereX included a direct link to the full Macro & Policy Note. That report outlines the data sources, methodology, exclusions, and the calculations used to derive the household income composition series. Therefore, anyone serious about challenging the findings had the opportunity to interrogate the report properly. The minimum standard for a credible rebuttal is simple: identify the data point(s) disputed, replicate the calculations, show where the arithmetic fails, and present counter-estimates using official sources.
He did none of that.
Instead, the author relies on conjecture, insinuation, and vague appeals to external estimates. This is precisely the kind of lazy intellectual practice that has contaminated public discourse in Guyana: persons making sweeping claims, with no numbers, no replication, no tables, no counter-model, and no accountability—while attempting to cloak opinion in academic credentialing.
SphereX’s analysis is based on official administrative
datasets
SphereX’s household income transformation analysis is anchored in official administrative datasets that reflect real income flows and support mechanisms affecting households in Guyana. The data sources are explicitly stated and publicly verifiable:
- National Budget Estimates (various years), Ministry of Finance
- National Insurance Scheme Annual Reports (various years)
- Guyana Revenue Authority Annual Reports (various years)
- Bank of Guyana Annual Reports (various years)
These are not speculative sources. These are the official records of wages, taxes, social transfers, subsidies, grants, and remittances. This is the appropriate evidence base for analyzing household income composition from a macro-fiscal perspective.
The author did not dispute any of these sources. He did not challenge the dataset. He did not challenge the methodology. He did not even attempt to reproduce the calculations. Instead, he substituted the discipline of analysis with broad rhetoric and external references.
That is unacceptable for anyone claiming research seriousness.
Another point must be driven home
Another point that must be driven home. The author’s over-reliance—and indeed acceptance as gospel—of World Bank and IDB estimates exposes a fundamental weakness in his posture as a supposed policy analyst. For someone presenting himself as well credentialed, his letter evidences that he has never conducted any independent professional research grounded in primary datasets, such as those derived from the Bank of Guyana Annual Reports, Ministry of Finance budget estimates, the Bureau of Statistics, the NIS, and the GRA—the very datasets that serious analysts use to interrogate Guyana’s economic reality.
He may attempt to argue that local data is unreliable, but that is an entirely different argument altogether. The fact remains: the World Bank and IDB do not generate Guyana’s macro-fiscal administrative datasets—they source them from the same official local authoritative institutions. And where their reports depart from administrative data, they typically rely on survey-based modelling and harmonized cross-country statistical frameworks built for universal comparability across jurisdictions. Those frameworks are assumption-heavy by design and often lag reality on the ground, especially in frontier economies like ours where context, institutional nuance, and rapid structural change are not adequately captured.
In other words, he is relying on generalized models and often outdated estimates to dispute locally sourced administrative data—without producing a single independent counter-estimate. That is not analysis; it is intellectual outsourcing.
What the report actually found — and what the author failed to rebut
The central argument of SphereX’s analysis is not that households have suddenly become wealthy. That is a deliberate misrepresentation. The argument is that the composition and structure of household income has transformed materially over time, and this has important implications for welfare resilience, social stability, and fiscal sustainability.
The key findings are clear:
- Remittances collapsed as a share of household income from approximately 51% in 2010 to approximately 11% by 2025.
- Government social welfare support, subsidies and grants expanded materially over time, reflecting deliberate policy interventions to cushion household purchasing power and protect living standards—including indirect subsidies resulting from foregone tax revenues through fiscal measures to combat rising prices (such as removal of excise taxes on fuel, VAT measures, increases in the income tax threshold, and reductions in income tax rates).
- Excluding remittances, the domestic household income base is now increasingly cushioned by social transfers: social security and social support rose from approximately 28% in 2010 / 27% in 2020 to ≈50% in 2025.
These are not political statements. These are quantitative outcomes derived from official administrative datasets. If the author disputes them, the burden is on him to show alternative estimates and to demonstrate where SphereX’s arithmetic fails.
Again, he did not.
A simple example — so the public understands the arithmetic
Since the author claims methodological concern, let me provide a simple illustration of how one of the key estimates is derived, using publicly verifiable administrative data. I will demonstrate this using the effective income tax rate method applied to PAYE and self- employed income tax collections.
The method is straightforward:
- Gross taxable income (base salary / wages) is estimated as: Gross taxable wages = (Personal + self-employed income tax collections) / (Effective income tax rate).
- Net disposable income from wages is then approximated as: Net wages = Gross taxable
wages − (Personal + self-employed income tax collections).
Now, using official figures cited in the SphereX report for demonstration:
Example 1 — 2020: Effective income tax rate: 30%; Personal income tax + self-employed income tax: GYD 40bn. Gross taxable wages = 40/0.30 = 133.3 GYD bn. Net wages =
133.3 − 40 = 93.3 GYD bn.
Example 2 — 2025: Effective income tax rate: 21%; Personal income tax + self-employed income tax: GYD 71bn. Gross taxable wages = 71/0.21 = 338.1 GYD bn. Net wages =
338.1 − 71 = 267.1 GYD bn.
This alone demonstrates a material expansion in the formal income base. And I emphasize: this is only one component of the total household income decomposition. For completeness, the remittance series used in the report is sourced directly from Bank of Guyana Annual Reports, not from conjecture or external sources.
Limitations (and why the report is conservative)
SphereX’s analysis explicitly discloses exclusions and conservative assumptions, which means the household income estimates are more likely to be understated rather than overstated.
In addition to the exclusions already stated (non-taxable allowances/benefits, below- threshold households outside the tax net, and informal economy activity), there is another important limitation which we did not explicitly state in the original report:
Self-employed persons often understate taxable income in their filings. This is not controversial or conjecture. It is grounded in professional reality. Based on my experience spanning more than a decade in the banking sector, having engaged hundreds of self- employed and owner-managed businesses across multiple industries, it is well established that under-reporting of taxable income is not the exception—it is often the norm. In practice, many of these operators maintain two sets of financials: one prepared for banking and credit assessment purposes, and another structured for tax reporting. Further, it is common for a significant portion of personal consumption expenditure to be routed through business accounts and deducted as operating expenses, thereby suppressing declared profits and compressing the effective tax base. Accordingly, any household income estimation approach that relies on declared personal and self-employed income tax collections—even when adjusted through an effective tax rate method—will, by construction, produce conservative estimates that understate the true underlying income reality.
This means that even the wage and self-employed income component estimated through the effective tax rate approach is conservative.
Further, the same IDB literature the author appears to treat as gospel estimates the informal economy at roughly 30% of non-oil GDP. That, too, implies that the household income levels derived from formal administrative channels alone cannot represent the full income reality—they are an undercount by definition.
In short: the report uses official administrative data, transparent arithmetic, and conservative assumptions — and still produces a clear structural result in the evolution of household income composition.
Conclusion
SphereX stands firmly by the analytical structure of the report. The household income transformation findings are grounded in official administrative datasets and transparent methodology. If the author wishes to challenge the findings, he is invited to do what serious analysts do: replicate the calculations using the same official sources, publish his counter- decomposition, and allow the public to evaluate the competing evidence.
Until then, SphereX will treat his letter for what it is: a narrative response without technical substance, dressed in academic credentialing.
Guyana deserves better than conjecture. Public discourse must be anchored in evidence.
And so, I await the author’s own work—his datasets, his assumptions, and his calculations—showing precisely where SphereX’s analysis is wrong and producing a competing decomposition that contradicts these findings. Anything short of that is not research. It is noise.