4 ms·

Please note that in Germany and many other European countries, the net income is usually after taxes and mandatory insurances like health insurance, pension ins

by lqet 7y ago

Please note that in Germany and many other European countries, the net income is usually after taxes and mandatory insurances like health insurance, pension insurance, unemployment insurance or long term care insurance. For a married couple without children, 5160 EUR net income per month then equates an income of over 100,000 EUR per year.

Insanity 7y ago
yeah, this number seems high. It might not look high to the overseas visitors to HN, but in Europe that's well paid!
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > in Europe that's well paid Well paid but not upper class. Give Germany has a bona fide upper class, this is a meaningful point to snuffle about. The couple with €5,160/mo. in net income is still, in all likelihood, beholden to their employer.
  - FabHK 7y ago
    The study defines upper class as top 10% of net income.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > The study defines upper class as top 10% of net income And the comments in this thread are disagreeing with that terminology. (The term of art has been “high earners” when I’ve seen income statistics in America.)
      - FabHK 7y ago
        The study itself actually distinguishes upper class (Oberschicht) from the top income decile (which is what the research is about). At any rate, that's really a semantic issue and should not distract from the substance.
- verttii 7y ago
  5160 € net would be incredibly much in Finland. A single guy would have to bring home roughly 115,000 € = 128,600 USD gross annually for that. That would put you close to the 1% of the top earners in Finland. Even most mid-sized company CEOs don't make nearly that much.
  - dgellow 7y ago
    The value of 5160€ is for couples.
    - verttii 7y ago
      Yep, so both would have to be working at very well paying jobs to bring anywhere near that level net income home.
esotericn 7y ago
100K EUR is a high income relative to the median but not compared to the actual upper class. It might get you a mortgage on a 500K EUR home. Maybe. Now consider everything above that, farmland, companies, warehouses, etc. Not some theoretical tiny portion, but actually a load of stuff above that. Leaving aside any form of apologism if you define 100K as upper class you now have no term to describe those that are actually rich.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > if you define 100K as upper class you now have no term to describe those that are actually rich We've got plenty (you even used one, "rich"). "One percenters", "millionaires", "wealthy", "upper upper class", etc.
- yulaow 7y ago
  I don't know if it is a cultural difference, but here in euw, in my country in particular, we usually use a similar definition for upper class and we call the class of the actually rich just like it, "the rich".
meehow 7y ago
it's closer to 110K. German taxes and other fees are on Scandinavian level.
- lqet 7y ago
  If the couple is married and only one of them is earning money, 5160 EUR net income per month may be generated by less than 100k EUR total income per year (its roughly 98k). This is mainly because your non-earning spouse can be included in your health care insurance for free, and because of the Ehegattensplitting [0] [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehegattensplitting https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehegattensplitting
dgellow 7y ago
For reference, 120k€ (before taxes) could be a couple of software engineers with normal mid-level or low senior-level salaries (at least for Berlin, don’t know about other places).
RonaldSchleifer 7y ago
It's such a pernicious and evil socialist/communist tactic of hiding the reality of the matter ... they hire you on a gross income and then you are shown/given a net income to live on, while everything that was taken from you from gross to net is obscured and hidden just like the sales tax is obscured in the form of the VAT you are not shown and most do not think about ... out of sight, out of mind. It's not slavery when you are not chained, right. It's not all that different than what was done in the USA too, but it never got that bad there. Instead of having corporations aligned with the ruling class and their government just take out and hide what they take, make people have to send their payments of taxes and other costs to the government every month, and see how things change practically over night. People in Europe are seriously starting to wake up to the fraud of "socialism" and they have legitimate grievances that no one here would be ok with. Imagine having to send the government 45% of your paycheck every month so that some "refugee" using three identities and who has three wives and 8 children can live in three free houses and make €250,000 tax free. Or even just having to support the ruling class so their children can have "free" education at the cost of the lower and middle classes, who will then leave the country and work for a Silicon Valley tech company making $200,000+ after the German/European middle and lower classes paid for their "free education". Or even better yet, having to pay all those taxes so that some privileged American student can study for "free" at a European university on the backs of the European middle and lower classes.

by lqet 7y ago

Insanity 7y ago

yeah, this number seems high. It might not look high to the overseas visitors to HN, but in Europe that's well paid!

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> in Europe that's well paid Well paid but not upper class. Give Germany has a bona fide upper class, this is a meaningful point to snuffle about. The couple with €5,160/mo. in net income is still, in all likelihood, beholden to their employer.
- FabHK 7y ago
  The study defines upper class as top 10% of net income.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > The study defines upper class as top 10% of net income And the comments in this thread are disagreeing with that terminology. (The term of art has been “high earners” when I’ve seen income statistics in America.)
    - FabHK 7y ago
      The study itself actually distinguishes upper class (Oberschicht) from the top income decile (which is what the research is about). At any rate, that's really a semantic issue and should not distract from the substance.
verttii 7y ago
5160 € net would be incredibly much in Finland. A single guy would have to bring home roughly 115,000 € = 128,600 USD gross annually for that. That would put you close to the 1% of the top earners in Finland. Even most mid-sized company CEOs don't make nearly that much.
- dgellow 7y ago
  The value of 5160€ is for couples.
  - verttii 7y ago
    Yep, so both would have to be working at very well paying jobs to bring anywhere near that level net income home.

esotericn 7y ago

100K EUR is a high income relative to the median but not compared to the actual upper class. It might get you a mortgage on a 500K EUR home. Maybe. Now consider everything above that, farmland, companies, warehouses, etc. Not some theoretical tiny portion, but actually a load of stuff above that. Leaving aside any form of apologism if you define 100K as upper class you now have no term to describe those that are actually rich.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> if you define 100K as upper class you now have no term to describe those that are actually rich We've got plenty (you even used one, "rich"). "One percenters", "millionaires", "wealthy", "upper upper class", etc.
yulaow 7y ago
I don't know if it is a cultural difference, but here in euw, in my country in particular, we usually use a similar definition for upper class and we call the class of the actually rich just like it, "the rich".

meehow 7y ago

it's closer to 110K. German taxes and other fees are on Scandinavian level.

lqet 7y ago
If the couple is married and only one of them is earning money, 5160 EUR net income per month may be generated by less than 100k EUR total income per year (its roughly 98k). This is mainly because your non-earning spouse can be included in your health care insurance for free, and because of the Ehegattensplitting [0] [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehegattensplitting https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehegattensplitting

dgellow 7y ago

For reference, 120k€ (before taxes) could be a couple of software engineers with normal mid-level or low senior-level salaries (at least for Berlin, don’t know about other places).

RonaldSchleifer 7y ago

It's such a pernicious and evil socialist/communist tactic of hiding the reality of the matter ... they hire you on a gross income and then you are shown/given a net income to live on, while everything that was taken from you from gross to net is obscured and hidden just like the sales tax is obscured in the form of the VAT you are not shown and most do not think about ... out of sight, out of mind. It's not slavery when you are not chained, right. It's not all that different than what was done in the USA too, but it never got that bad there. Instead of having corporations aligned with the ruling class and their government just take out and hide what they take, make people have to send their payments of taxes and other costs to the government every month, and see how things change practically over night. People in Europe are seriously starting to wake up to the fraud of "socialism" and they have legitimate grievances that no one here would be ok with. Imagine having to send the government 45% of your paycheck every month so that some "refugee" using three identities and who has three wives and 8 children can live in three free houses and make €250,000 tax free. Or even just having to support the ruling class so their children can have "free" education at the cost of the lower and middle classes, who will then leave the country and work for a Silicon Valley tech company making $200,000+ after the German/European middle and lower classes paid for their "free education". Or even better yet, having to pay all those taxes so that some privileged American student can study for "free" at a European university on the backs of the European middle and lower classes.