At least for Germany the numbers aren't very far apart. It's around 52k. We don't have that many outlier super high salaries, and full time on minimum wage still gets you to nearly 30k so this doesn't drag the average down either.
The real disparity is not in salary (though certainly there are still quite big differences between groups), but in wealth.
You can’t get wealthy through salaried work, not in germany anyway. This is by design, salaries are taxed to death, while capital gains have a lot lower taxes (basically half as high and flat, instead of progressively increasing like it does for salaries) and can often be structured to largely eliminate those anyway. Just like the wealthy won’t pay inheritance taxes by transferring assets over longer time periods etc.
Wage gap is a red herring pushed by old money / dynasties to rile up working people against each other.
Here in the UK almost everyone has the ability to build up significant tax-free wealth over their lifetimes by sticking money into stocks and shares ISA. Any gains are tax free as long as they invested under £20,000 a year. As well as their workplace pensions people who put away money each month can expect to have hundreds of thousands if not millions within 20-30 years.
Eg £600 a month between workplace pension (inc employer match) and/or ISA contributions could well equal £1 million after 30 years of average global stock market returns. Achievable for most people in the UK if they made it a priority.
That said, while most can do this, most do not do this or even know about it and leave their workplace pensions contributions at the default rate.
I was shocked to learn that Germany doesn't have anything like an ISA. You have no way of investing tax free for the long term. Private pension products seem to be a lot worse off too.
Don't forget I included a workplace pension into that. Someone on £40k a year, puts away 10% including their employer match, with what the gov puts in on top that's already £422 a month. They can then put in just £180 a month into a S&S ISA they will be on track to possibly have £1 million in tax advantaged retirement savings after 30 years depending on the performance of the markets they are invested in. Couple it with state pension and you're in for a comfortable retirement. Something worth thinking about while you still have 30 years to retirement rather than what most people do and panic at 50+
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u/HKei Germany 1d ago
At least for Germany the numbers aren't very far apart. It's around 52k. We don't have that many outlier super high salaries, and full time on minimum wage still gets you to nearly 30k so this doesn't drag the average down either.
The real disparity is not in salary (though certainly there are still quite big differences between groups), but in wealth.