Are you male, employed, with managerial responsibilities? Or a skilled worker in the automotive industry? Statistically, the chances are not bad that you belong: to the top ten percent, the top earners in Germany. After all, it is not just your salary that counts, but everything that is credited to you every month, government benefits such as child benefit, rental income, and profits from shares.
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Where is the line between the high and the top earners? For the SPIEGEL, the Institute for the German Economy (IW) evaluated exactly that. The latest data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a regular survey of 16,000 households, served as the basis for this. Watch out: it’s about the income, not the wealth.
In 2016 the limit was 3342 euros net for singles. According to the current evaluation, this value has meanwhile increased: from an income of 3529 euros net per month, a single belongs to the top ten percent of the top earners. Couples without children are in the top ten percent with a net household income of € 5294 or more, and a family with two children under 14 years from € 7412 net.
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And you? Do the math – and find out what percentage of Germans earn less or more than you. You can also compare yourself with certain population groups.
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The researchers also analyzed the top earners by gender and employment status:
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55 percent of the top ten percent are male.
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Couples without children in the household make up the majority with 48 percent,
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followed by singles with 31 percent.
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Most of the top earners are by far highly qualified employees (24 percent),
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the next largest group are employees in qualified jobs (e.g. skilled workers, foremen or foremen) with 16 percent.
“Subjectively, very few people feel that they belong to the top tenth, but the group includes a little more than eight million people,” says IW economist Judith Niehues. At the same time, most people believed that the proportion of rich people in Germany was above 20 percent. “Very few people feel rich themselves, but at the same time think that there are many rich people.”
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What does all this mean now? And what special responsibility do the top earners now have, especially in the corona crisis? Read the analysis here.
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