(MarketWatch) - By one measure, it’s the highest earners who are the biggest imbibers.

Almost one in five Britons who earn at least 40,000 pounds (nearly $57,000) are likely to imbibe at least five days a week, compared with just 8% of those who earn less that £10,000 ($14,200) a year, according to data published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, which asked people how much they had drunk in the past week.

And the link between money and drinking is similar in the U.S. Some 78% of those with an annual household income of $75,000 or more say they drink, compared with 45% of those with a household income of less than $30,000.

By one measure, it’s the highest earners who are the biggest imbibers.

Almost one in five Britons who earn at least 40,000 pounds (nearly $57,000) are likely to imbibe at least five days a week, compared with just 8% of those who earn less that £10,000 ($14,200) a year, according to data published Tuesday by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics, which asked people how much they had drunk in the past week.

And the link between money and drinking is similar in the U.S. Some 78% of those with an annual household income of $75,000 or more say they drink, compared with 45% of those with a household income of less than $30,000.

But while those with bigger paychecks may consume alcohol nearly every day, they are less likely to be binge drinkers. The U.K.’s regular drinkers tend to be between 25 and 64 years old; binge drinkers (those who drank more than 14 units of alcohol in their heaviest drinking day) tend to be between 16 and 24 years old, according to the ONS.

The U.K. government recommends that adults regularly drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week — or six pints of beer with a 4% alcohol content, six midsize glasses of 13% wine or 14 standard-measure (25-milliliter) glasses of a 40% spirit. Those units should be spread out over at least three days, meaning that one day’s drinking shouldn’t routinely top 4.67 units.

More about Anglo-American drinking habits:

In Britain, better-off drinkers of any kind tend to be men: 77% of those who’d had even a drop of alcohol that week were men. By contrast, two-thirds of the regular drinkers in the lowest income group were women. In the U.S., 69% of men of any income level said they drink, compared with 59% of women, according to Gallup.