[fnordian_slip]

Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"?

On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen").

I am sorry to venture so far off topic, but I do most of my thinking either in German or in English which makes me vulnerable to stupid mistakes when the two overlap, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me where I went wrong.

[readittwice]

No sorry, you are right. There are also wages in this chart, I didnt't see that. Sorry for that...

But IMHO the difference between median and average isn't that big in Germany, even smaller than in Austria which doesn't have Hartz IV and Euro-Jobs. What would you consider acceptable? Also consider that these numbers may contain salaries for part-time jobs too. And those numbers are from 2010.

[fnordian_slip]

What would I consider acceptable? That's actually a good question, maybe I am just a bit hard to please. Now that I think about it again after a few days, you may be right, and I may just be too hard on Germany here.

It's probably just that I think that we should theoretically be in a good position to lower the divide between the rich and the poor, and instead it always seems to widen. I tend to forget that in a lot of other countries the situation is even worse, and maybe I should be thankful for what we have already achieved.

Thanks for the perspective, and a good Day of German Unity to you!