
In Germany, couples with more than €5160/month belong to the upper class - dgellow
https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-08/institut-der-deutschen-wirtschaft-einkommen-singlehaushalt-gehalt
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esotericn
No, they don't. The upper class live off investments.

I'm not even going to look but just guess that 60K EUR/year isn't even enough
to buy a house near Frankfurt or another decent sized city.

They might be in a high percentile. That only means that most people are very
poor.

~~~
fuzz4lyfe
60k euro puts you in the top 0.11%[0] globally in terms of income.

"It would take the average labourer in Zimbabwe 71 years to earn the same
amount."

[0][http://www.globalrichlist.com/](http://www.globalrichlist.com/)

~~~
esotericn
Yes, it's a high income globally.

"Class" in the European sense is not an income based thing. It falls apart a
bit at the extremes (what is Jeff Bezos?) but it'd be incorrect to categorise
e.g. a CEO as being upper-class despite them being in the 99th percentile by
income in their country.

The term really describes nobility, inheritance, large land ownership.
Existing in a different 'class'.

~~~
rexgallorum2
For the German bourgeoisie, it's education and cultivation. (Education and
profession are probably more important class markers than actual income or
wealth.) The genuine upper class may or may not care about either because
their status is drawn from other things.

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

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _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
The study defines upper class as top 10% of net income.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _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
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.

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rexgallorum2
Read it. They're using the wrong expression. 'Oberschicht' might be accurate
in some statistical way, but it really means 'upper middle class' in this
case. The measure is flawed though because it is based on monthly (presumably
earned) income without taking into account net worth. Someone could own
millions in property or other investments in Germany and have a relatively low
net income, yet have the option of cashing out for a vast amount of money.

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turbinerneiter
Given that you spend the recommended one third of your net income (€5160) on
housing, this means that in 45 years (~roughly a worklife) you can spend
€919.512 on a house/flat (ignoring renovations, assuming 0 interest
financing). In Munich, this is what a flat like that can look like:
[https://www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/S-T/Wohnung-
Kauf/Baye...](https://www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/S-T/Wohnung-
Kauf/Bayern/Muenchen/-/-/-/EURO--919512,00?enteredFrom=result_list#/)

Also, this is _net_ income. In Germany that means healthcare is covered and
you don't have to pay off large student debt.

To reach this net income, both partners have to make about 54.000 a year pre-
tax.

Most important point: the data is based on surveys, which means the super-rich
don't really show up.

~~~
wil421
Is that apartment considered nice and in a good area? It looks a little dated
but certainly not bad. Not sure about the price compared to hr states.

Here’s a comparable listing from Atlanta in a nice urban area. Atlanta is a
lot bigger than Munich.

[https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/867-Peachtree-St-NE-
UNIT-...](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/867-Peachtree-St-NE-
UNIT-203-Atlanta-GA-30308/2086809212_zpid/)

~~~
turbinerneiter
If your are talking about the first one in the list - that is a very good
location in Germanys most expensive city. Your link is a new building, so it
immediately looks quite a bit fancier. The Munich place would probably get a
new kitchen by whomever spends 800k on it.

I think you have to click through a couple of places to get a better feeling.

It's also insanely different between countryside and cities. Back home where
my parents live, you could build a really, really nice house for that money.
That's probably triple of what my friends back there spend on their homes, and
those are really nice already.

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Udo
Of note is that "upper class" in this context is questionably defined as being
in the top 10 percent of earners. I think this is misleading because I don't
see someone making 3.5k as a single or 5.1k as a couple necessarily enjoying
an upper class lifestyle. It's enough for a mortgage in a middle-class
neighborhood and maybe a lease on one nice car (or two middle-tier cars).

I have no idea what percent of the population is _actually_ upper class, but
they usually outright own multiple houses and luxury cars, and most
importantly, a significant stack of wealth that is not necessarily bound in
everyday living.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Do you not find it concerning that someone at the 90th income percentile in
one of the richest countries in the world, in stuck in a socio-economic system
where they have to be in significant debt to be able to obtain two fundamental
human rights - shelter and transport?

Either something is wrong with the social system which is making individuals
to spend so much. Or something is wrong with the economic system, which is not
providing enough income. Or something else wrong?

~~~
Udo
In short, yes, I do find it concerning. Germany at least has a social safety
net (as opposed to, say, the US), but making use of it is often dehumanizing
and complex by design. Of course owning a nice house and an upscale car is a
few rungs removed from having basic shelter and transport.

One of the middle class problems I do see is that owning your daily stuff
(like a house and a car) - and hence gaining some measure of independence - is
increasingly difficult, even for relatively high earners. I think another
poster here got it right when they said that being upper class ultimately
means being a rentier instead of a rentee.

------
ctw
I'm reading a book called Capital in the Twenty-First Century right now, which
is all about this stuff. I'm only about halfway through right now, but here
are some points from the book I find interesting (all of them iirc since I
don't have access to the book right now):

* the author chooses not to use the terms lower, middle, and upper class because doing so just leads to arguments about where to draw the lines. Interesting that so many comments on this thread are just people arguing about what "upper class" means because it's a personal term. He instead splits the distributions of income into three parts, the bottom 50%, the 40% above that, and the top 10% and simply refers to them by centile and decile. The "top decile" has an unambiguous meaning, whereas "upper class" could mean anything. * there are three distributions: income from labour, income from capital, and combined total income. The people at the top of one distribution aren't necessarily the ones at the top of the other. The book analyzes inequality across different countries across the past two hundred years or so, super interesting stuff * only when you get into the top 0.1% are you earning more income from capital than income from labour * inequality of income from labour is far lower than inequality of income from capital and always has been in every society in every period * inequality from income from labour is _easier_ to morally justify than inequality from capital, but still not necessarily just in any absolute sense * the bottom 50% owns only about 5% of the total capital

------
em500
Self-referencing my post in another thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695115](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20695115)

Summary:

\- €5160/month is the German 90-percentile monthly net household income

\- The US 90-percentile monthly household net is probably around $9k - $10k

\- Major contributors to the differences in the gross are in my guesstimate
(1) overvalued USD, (2) more hours worked in the US

\- differences in the net are clearly mostly due to different
taxation/collective spending

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sjbase
Is it really worth our time to be debating the semantics and connotation of
the word "upper"? That's essentially what this post is.

~~~
FabHK
Exactly. The substantive contribution is to peg a number to the top income
decile. It doesn't matter what you call it (and the study itself is careful
about that, distinguishing _Oberschicht_ from top income decile).

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WengerPen
Most people don't realize how well-off they are since in most cases, their
income move at a similar pace to their expenses. A person making $500k may
feel poor and complain to their peers simply on the basis that they are living
in an area that is more expensive, eating an assortment of foods at a higher
premium, buying a car 15x the average used car, etc.

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amai
The real problem is that in East Germany with more than €2839/month you belong
to the upper class. In West Germany you need €3431/month showing that people
from East Germany on average only have 80% of the income in the West even 30
years after reunification.

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k__
Sounds about right to me.

Sure, you won't get a house in Starnberg for that, but they don't say you're
rich with that money, just upper class.

The middle class isn't as rich as most people here think.

