Interactive graphics As high your income is compared to other.

How are you standing there for with your income? Other people with the same education, or family situation have more or less money? This interactive graphic shows you.

Pedestrian zone in Munich.

Born in 1975, born and raised in Munich, Germany, as an it entrepreneur, trained, and seven years as a Software developer. Basic studies of journalism, politics, and geography at the University of Hamburg, co-Founding and multi-year Co-editor-in-chief of the campus magazine «injection» and «semi-strong». Freelance work and internships, among other things, in the case of NDR and «Knowledge». Since December 2007, freelance for the MIRROR ONLINE, as of November 2011, volunteer since February 2013, editor in the Department of economic.

Last autumn, Friedrich Merz made a daring assessment of a stir. The then-candidate for the CDU presidency is denied to belong to the rich upper class: «So, I would count myself among the upper-middle Liam Hemsworth after the marriage Of Sad words to Miley class in Germany,» he said. He estimated his annual income even to around a Million euros – and is thus clearly the financial upper class.

However, it is the most German as Merz: you don’t know where you file with your income in the society – how many people in this country, therefore, less available, and how many more? As a researcher at the University of Hanover carried out a corresponding survey, they had to state that «the respondents could not find their Position in the income scale even close» .

This is obviously true: the others are always. The top 20 percent were aware of their Position at the top, almost without exception are not even aware of – such as Merz. However, even the Poorest, instead of situate yourself very often in the middle of the society as to their actual Position at the very bottom. Also arm are almost always just the other.

Prosperity appears to be relatively.

These misperceptions are likely to be based on a simple effect: The man compares himself with his living environment. A business lawyer from the prestigious Hamburg-Blankenese in the office, at the Baker’s or parents ‘ evening is usually people who are similarly situated good. Also, compared with the old study friends, you should feel neither richer nor poorer, but normal, in the middle. The Same is also true for the unskilled workers in the large housing estate in the same city, whose standard of living resembles that of his friends and Acquaintances .

Where are you with your income? You can find out with the interactive Tool of the employer middle Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW), the latest data from the SOEP (German Socio-economic Panel) are used for the each year many Thousands of people to be interviewed and is considered to be very reliable and meaningful. Specifically, the Tool shows the income situation in the year 2016 .

The Tool provides a unique way: It not only shows the income distribution for the total population, but also for a total of 27 sub-groups – which differ in terms of employment status, education, gender, place of residence, age, living situation or origin. So you are not able to locate their own Position within the society as a whole, but also, for example, in the sub-group of academics, or the Singles or the tenant.

Wear it with the net income of your household, as well as the number and age of the people who live in it. Then you can select one of two different groups, with whom they want to compare. The Tool displays your Position in the respective group .

As income all of the income of the household members, not just from wages or pensions, but also from Rent, interest, children, money, the Hartz IV program or other sources, minus taxes and social contributions. Important: those Who inhabited residential property yourself, you must also calculate the fictitious saved net rent on his income. If in your Situation nothing Fundamental has changed, use your income from the year 2016, as well as the Tool used data from this year. (For more Details about the data basis and the Definition of the sub-groups you will find at the end of this article.)

In order to make the income, irrespective of the number of household members – from singles to large family – in a comparable way, the IW is the so-called equivalised income, in the together-living adults and children, depending on age be taken into account (Details at the end of the article).

In the case of a family with two adults and two children under the age of 14, for example, a real household income of 4500 euros corresponds to the net a needs-weighted income of 2143 euros net. So the net would have to be the income of Singles to reach the same standard of living as each member of the family. Exactly in the middle of the total population is by the way, with 1869, – Euro net, exactly half of the German households have a higher demand-weighted income per Person, the other half a lower.

The Tool shows more than just the own Position: It is at a glance, what are the population groups with very little money and especially a lot of them have. In this part, significant differences in the IW point-researchers Judith Niehaus and Maximilian Stockhausen in a short report. One thing is clear: people without education as well as self-arrived migrants often have very low-income College graduates and full-time workers are often relatively high.

How effective is the state redistribution is ?

The least money, therefore, but Single parents and their children. Already with a needs-weighted income of 1309 Euro a household is located exactly in the middle of this group, 37 percent of single-parent households, land below the Federal poverty threshold.

Children live together with an adult Pair, the equivalised median income with 1879 Euro, considerably higher (and even slightly above the level of the total population). In addition, significantly fewer of these households are below the poverty line with 14 percent. Far more affluent couples without children, with a median income of 2209 Euro and a risk of poverty by only seven percent are, by the way .

In this context, it is important that it is the income AFTER state redistribution – that is, after taxes paid and social benefits such as children allowance, or advance. The IW Tool can also be used as a Test of how effectively the state is reducing financial inequality. In the case of the children of lone parents is closely associated with equality of opportunity. It is very obviously bad .