Wealth limit
The wealth limit , also the threshold value for income wealth , is that net equivalent income of a person, which is by a certain defined percentage , the threshold value, above the median value of the net equivalent income of the population .
The definition corresponds methodologically to the definition of the relative poverty line and is a relative concept of income wealth. It is based on dividing the distribution of income into a wealth area and the rest of the distribution. People with a net equivalent income above the threshold of wealth are considered to be wealthy . Their share in the total population is known as the wealth rate.
criticism
Wealth and poverty rates are only partially meaningful, as the underlying data are always flawed due to the survey method using voluntary self-disclosure of a population sample. The majority of self-employed and property income is not recorded due to a lack of data due to the decreasing willingness of respondents to provide information with increasing income and assets and therefore only household net income up to a cut-off limit is taken into account in the calculations. The highest incomes are not included in the distribution calculations and the profits not withdrawn by the self-employed cannot be recorded.
As a result, the statistically recorded total income of the self-employed and from assets , for example investment income and rents, is lower than the actual income in the national accounts (VGR) . The actual unequal distribution is therefore greater than the calculated and officially published one, because the wealth rates and also the poverty rate statistically determined in this way are lower than the actual ones.
A large part of the income is not recorded by household surveys and is not shown in the distribution calculations and thus in the unequal distribution measures such as the Gini index . This is "a fundamental problem of measuring self-employed and property income in (voluntary) household surveys".
Germany
| NEXT | 2013 Germany |
2008 Germany |
2008 West Germany and Berlin |
2003 West Germany and Berlin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% | 50.0% | 50.0% | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| 200% | 7.1% | 8.4% | 9.5% | 8.4% |
| 250% | 3.1% | 3.8% | 4.3% | 3.8% |
| 300% | 1.4% | 1.9% | 2.2% | 1.9% |
| 400% | 0.4% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| NEXT | 1957 € / month | 1772 € / month | 1667 € / month | |
In its publications, the Federal Statistical Office lists wealth rates for 200%, 250%, 300% and 400% of the mean (median) net equivalent income:
The median of the net equivalent income of the total population was 1957 Euro / month based on the latest available results (2013) of the five-year income and consumer sample.
This means that the wealth limit for 200% of the median is a net equivalent income of 3,914 euros. 7.1% of Germany's population had this.
Due to the cut-off limit of 18,000 euros per month, many households with much higher incomes are not taken into account: The sum of the statistical self-employed and property incomes of the EVS only includes 30% of the same income amount in the national accounts . Also not included are people in communal accommodation, e.g. residents of nursing homes and the homeless.
Individual evidence
- ^ Federal Statistical Office: Quality of the results of the EVS 2008. In: Fachserie 15 Heft 7 , Wirtschaftsrechnungen. Sample of income and expenditure. Task, method and implementation. P. 39. Federal Statistical Office, Wiesbaden, 2013.
- ↑ a b Fachserie 15, issue 6 EVS 2008, page 24
- ↑ Fachserie 15, issue 6 EVS 2003, page 67
- ↑ a b c d The median of the net equivalent income is defined in such a way that exactly 50.0% of the population are below / above.
- ↑ Federal Statistical Office: Sample Income and Consumption - Income Distribution in Germany. Section Income wealth , p. 15. In: Fachserie 15 Heft 6 , Wirtschaftsrechnungen , Federal Statistical Office, Wiesbaden, 2012.
- ↑ 2008, from 139 billion euros to 477 billion euros
- ↑ Federal Statistical Office: Income and Consumption Sample - Task, Method and Implementation. P. 9. In: Fachserie 15, issue 7 , economic calculations, item number: 2152607089004, Federal Statistical Office , Wiesbaden, 2013.
- ↑ Federal Statistical Office: Sample Income and Consumption - Income Distribution in Germany. P. 7. In: Fachserie 15 Heft 6 , WirtschaftsrechUNGEN , Federal Statistical Office, Wiesbaden, 2012.