Hamburg tops table of highest income-earners

Hamburg is Germany’s highest-earning city with an average net income of €23,366 a year, a survey published Wednesday found.

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A report by Men’s Health magazine showed the well-to-do Hanseatics earn €9,000 more each year than residents in the poorest parts of the country.

Inhabitants of Munich are the second-highest earners with an average of €22,606, followed by those in Stuttgart with €22,071.

The magazine calculated average take-home pay based on data from the 50 biggest cities in Germany for 2007, though no data was available for the cities of Hannover or Saarbrücken.

Berlin continues to live up to its “poor but sexy” reputation, coming in at 43rd place with an average net income of €15,342.

Coming in last was Halle an der Saale, the largest city in the struggling state of Saxony-Anhalt, with €14,019, while the second-worst earning city was far-north Rostock in Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, with €14,465 in take-home pay.

In February, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), released a study showing that more than 11 million Germans lived in poverty, with poverty defined as an income lower than 60 percent of the national average.

For a one-person household poverty meant a yearly net income of €11,100 or below, while for a couple with two children, it would be €23,316 or less.

According the Federal Statistics Office, the 2009 national average for gross income was €41,500.


Germany's top 10 earning cities

1. Hamburg €23,366
2. Munich €22,606
3. Stuttgart €22,071
4. Düsseldorf €22,055
5. Solingen €21,884
6. Mülheim (Ruhr) €21,193
7. Münster (Westfalen) €21,165
8. Bremen €21,143
9. Bielefeld €20,348
10. Karlsruhe €20,213

The bottom 10 cities

39. Hamm (Westfalen) €15,690
40. Gelsenkirchen €15,624
41. Dresden €15,592
42. Kiel €15,505
43. Berlin €15,342
44. Erfurt €14,850
45. Leipzig €14,648
46. Magdeburg €14,473
47. Rostock €14,465
48. Halle (Saale) €14,019