Japanese lawmakers earned an average of 24.16 million yen ($218,600) in income last year, down 110,000 yen from 2019, parliamentary data showed Wednesday, with the salary of Diet members cut by 20 percent since May 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The average income among lawmakers marked a decline in 2020 for the second straight year. But it stayed almost flat compared with the 2019 level despite the salary cut in view of people's lives and state finances impacted by the pandemic, buoyed by sharp gains in income of the top earner through stock sales.

Taichiro Motoe, a ruling Liberal Democratic Party member of the House of Councillors, topped the list of 702 lawmakers at 1.91 billion yen. He became the top earner among lawmakers for the second consecutive year.

The lawyer-turned-politician, who founded the operator of a portal site for legal consultations, saw his income soar from 845.02 million yen in 2019 on gains from stock sales and received dividends.

Upper house lawmaker Yukihito Koga from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan rose to second from 31st in the previous year with 116.81 million yen, including 98.7 million yen in gains from foreign exchange trading.

Among leaders of seven ruling and opposition parties, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who heads the LDP, reported the highest income of 38.71 million yen in 2020, up from 27.66 million yen the previous year, when he was chief Cabinet secretary under his predecessor Shinzo Abe.

Suga's income ranked 23rd on the overall list and increased as he earned more money from growing exposure to the media after becoming the prime minister last September.

Meanwhile, CDPJ leader Yukio Edano reported 18.07 million yen, the lowest income last year among the seven party leaders, including Toranosuke Katayama, co-head of the opposition Japan Innovation Party.

The average income of LDP lawmakers stood at 27.27 million yen last year, up 1.19 million yen from 2019, hitting the highest level among nine parties for the fourth straight year. Of the nine, the heads of three parties are not parliamentarians.

Of the top 20 earners on the list, LDP members took 13 places.

The fringe party with two parliamentarians led by Takashi Tachibana, a former upper house member who has been a vocal critic of public broadcaster NHK, came second in the average income ranking at 24.11 million yen, followed by the CDPJ at 21.1 million yen.

The data also showed the average income of female lawmakers came to 19.25 million yen last year, while that of male lawmakers stood at 24.99 million yen, highlighting the gender pay gap in the Japanese political world.

Among the 101 female lawmakers, the highest earner was upper house President Akiko Santo at 32.03 million yen, despite her rank of 40th on the overall list.

LDP House of Representatives member Toshiko Abe came second among female lawmakers at 30.06 million yen, followed by upper house member Seiko Hashimoto, who heads the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, at 28.74 million yen.

As of 2020, women comprised just 9.9 percent of lawmakers in the lower house, and 22.9 percent in the upper house.

The average income data covered 459 members of the lower house and 243 members of the upper house who had seats in the Diet throughout the reporting year.