Germany has 3rd largest population of ultra-rich in the world, study reveals

A report by the Boston Consulting Group has found that in 2023, only the United States and China have a higher population of ultra-rich people than Germany.

2.900 people make up Germany's ultra-rich

Germany has been awarded a bronze medal in the Boston Consulting Group’s annual Global Wealth Report. According to the report, which is based on data from 150 wealth advisors and examines wealth trends throughout the world, the population of Germany’s super-rich is third only to that of the United States and China.

Of Germany’s population of 83,2 million, 2.900 belong to the super-rich - which is characterised as people who have assets of over 100 million US dollars, the equivalent of around 91 million euros.

Together, these 2.900 people own 21 percent of Germany’s wealth, about the same as the super-rich in the study's wealth management capital of the world, Switzerland. In comparison, the super-rich of Western Europe owns 17 percent of the area’s wealth and in 97 other countries analysed in the report, the super-rich owns just 13 percent of national assets.

How equal is wealth distribution in Germany?

News of the Boston Consulting Group’s report on Germany’s super-rich comes in the same week that union representatives lost a vote in Germany’s Minimum Wage Commission to secure an hourly rate of just 13,50 euros for the nearly 6 million people working in minimum wage jobs in Germany.

The contrast reflects a trend of economic inequality throughout the country. Despite having a comparatively generous social security system, Germany's levels of wealth inequality are closer to the United States than to neighbouring France. According to Oxfam, Germany’s richest 10 percent own 67,3 percent of the wealth in the federal republic and the top 0,1 percent own a shocking 20,4 percent.

This adds to a report by Berliner Morgenpost, which noted that if wealth distribution determined population distribution across the 16 German federal states, half of the entire population would be squeezed into the country’s second smallest state, Saarland.

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