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MONEY

How much money do you need to be part of Spain’s 1 percent?

We hear a lot in politics about the '1 percent', though most don't realise how much money you actually need to be part of this elite group of millionaires. Here's how Spain compares to the rest of the world when it comes to the uber-wealthy.

How much money do you need to be part of Spain’s 1 percent?
Photo: Pexels/Pixabay.

According to data from UBS’ Global Wealth Report 2023, there are 1,135 million people in Spain who could be considered millionaires, taking into account all their assets including cash, investments and property.

That means that Spain has around 2 percent of the world’s total millionaires (as per UBS’ data using 2022 figures). For context, the UK and Germany each have 4 percent shares, France has 5 percent, and the U.S. a whopping 38 percent of the millionaires around the globe.

However, being a millionaire is one thing, and being in the ultra-rich bracket is another thing — something often referred to in political discourse as the ‘1 percent’.

READ ALSO: How Spain’s new millionaire tax will affect wealthy foreigners

But how much money do you actually need to have to be a member of the 1 percent?

According to The Wealth Report produced by Knight Frank estate agents, the data shows that a person in the U.S. would need a minimum of $5.81 million to be considered part of the top 1 percent, for example.

In Monaco, a net worth of $12.88 million is required to be part of the 1 percent, closely followed by Luxembourg ($10.83 million) and Switzerland ($8.5 million).

What about in Spain? Well, the bar is a little lower. In order to join the 1 percent in Spain, you’d need a net worth of $2.46 million dollars to be part of that exclusive club.

READ ALSO: What’s considered a decent salary in Spain?

Comparing Spain to countries such as Luxembourg and Switzerland isn’t really useful, so for context, Spain is on the lower end of the rankings in terms of its bigger, more comparable European neighbours.

In Sweden, $4.76 million is needed to join the 1 percent. In Germany it would be $3.43 million; France $3.27 million; and Italy $2.54 million, meaning it’s slightly more difficult to get into the 1 percent in Spain’s Mediterranean neighbour than it is in Spain.

But there are levels of wealth, of course. Though in a time of inflation and lingering economic stagnation it might not feel like it, but it’s actually far easier to become a member of the 1 percent (in Spain or anywhere in the world) than it would be to become part of the super rich.

In the financial world, these sorts of people are often known as UHNWI (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals) and are people who have a net worth of $30 million or more.

There are currently some 627,000 people in this category around the world. Knight Frank’s Wealth Sizing Model estimates that there are 10,149 UHNWI people in Spain.

Interestingly, despite the threshold to be part of the 1 percent in Spain being roughly half of that in Sweden, Spain boasts far more UHNWIs than the Scandinavian country (4,125) and isn’t far behind Switzerland (14,734). It is some way behind the UK (23,072), and France (24,941) however. 

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MONEY

Spain’s wealth disparity grows as the young get poorer and retirees richer

New data released by the Bank of Spain has revealed that the difference in wealth between Spanish baby boomers, millennials and Gen Z keeps growing.

Spain's wealth disparity grows as the young get poorer and retirees richer

Wealth disparity in Spain continues to widen, with the young becoming poorer and older Spaniards and retirees enjoying higher levels of wealth than before. This is according to findings from the Survey of Household Finances report by the Banco de España.

In headline terms, the report reveals that the average net wealth in Spain in 2022 stood at €309,000 and the median net wealth €142,700.

This translates to average growth of 3.7 percent compared with 2020 levels, but median wealth rose by just 0.5 percent in that period. This represents slower growth than during the 2017-2020 period (4.8 percent and 6.8 percent respectively).

READ ALSO: Will there be no public pensions in Spain in the future?

However, the most striking aspect of the report was the growing disparity between older and younger Spaniards.

Dubbed the ‘generation gap’ by sections of the Spanish press, this wealth disparity has widened over the last five years, rewarding pensioners and leaving the under 40s, the only group to lose wealth overall between 2017 to 2022, increasingly behind when it comes to both net and median wealth, but also asset ownership.

But some groups in Spain saw significant increases in wealth. “Median wealth increased substantially in households in the top two deciles of the income distribution (11.4 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively), in older households (19 percent), in those where the head of the family has a university education and across the net wealth distribution,” the report stated.

The younger generations, however, didn’t do so well. Those between 20 and 40 years of age have gone from a median net wealth of €96,700 in 2020 to €86,100 in 2022.

On the other hand, Spaniards between 60 and 80 – a high percentage of whom are pensioners – saw the most notable rise in average wealth, with a net increase of €51,600.

As for the rest of the age brackets, those under 20 years of age had the lowest wealth levels overall. Median wealth went from €45,900 in 2020 to €38,800, a loss of €7,100.

Though the report did highlight the connection between educational levels and higher average income, it also pinpointed asset ownership as a major driver of wealth disparity.

READ ALSO: What’s considered a decent salary in Spain?

According to the report, wealth in Spain remains concentrated in ‘real assets’, accounting for 78.9 percent of total assets. Of these, property is by far the most significant, accounting for 52.9 percent of the value of real assets for all households and 41.7 percent of the value of total assets at the end of 2022.

Clearly, with rising property and rental prices around Spain and high youth unemployment rates, it is increasingly difficult for younger Spaniards (meaning up to age 40) to get on the property ladder and become asset holders.

Overall, average wealth levels fell in younger households (defined as under 45 years of age), households headed by self-employed people, households headed by people without a university education, and households that do not own their own home.

This comes in stark contrast to older and retired Spaniards who not only receive pensions, but are largely homeowners, have been for some time, and likely bought their properties some time ago when they were far cheaper as a proportion of income.

The report’s findings come amid ongoing concerns about the medium to long-term demographic future of Spain. This is particularly centred on the public pensions system, with worries that the an ageing population and flatlining birth rates, combined with the imminent retirement of the baby boomer generation, means that Spain could need millions of foreign workers to prop up its pensions system in the coming decades.

READ ALSO: Spain needs 25 million foreign workers to keep its pensions afloat

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