1) Income - Outgo
2) Assets - Liabilities
The question is how you wish to define them and what the public what them to mean.
1) varies in many ways eg profits, cash flow.
income - taxes is a political version, the definition of tax being manipulative eg United Kingdom National Insurance is an income tax in all but name and is a deduction from wages.
Level of income tax and liquidity matter as you may need to pay cash in an emergency.
If the population median of Income - Outgo is too low which can happen if prices are too high, the political incumbent is in trouble.
2) Assets - Liabilites is supposed to be solvency.
However, who values their earnings, pension plans and mortgage actuarially or at least over the whole of the lifetime of payments? I suppose on death the value of the estate shows how successful the individual has been in bequeathing to their next of kin. Also as mortgages are sometimes used to buy houses, it means that many are likely to have this as negative which is not quite the same as insolvent.
In both 1 and 2 there is sometimes a margin.
However, as pointed out on the tv programme Capital Account (search on youtube if you want to find out more about this free show) , you may have to worry if your assets are someone else’s liabilities. Also, bear in mind my actuarial learning said that government bonds are the securest asset! That must have been a long time ago!
Finally, as also pointed out on Capital Account, currency as legal tender has an additional value at least at home!
