Denmark’s wealthy have tripled their income over the last three decades

Gap between the elite and middle classes continuing to increase

Nov 19, 2015

Since the mid-1980s, the elite in Denmark have tripled their annual net income, according to new figures from the labour council Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd (AE).

The figures revealed that, on average, a wealthy family earned about 250,000 kroner after tax back in 1985. That has tripled to about 700,000 kroner after tax today.

“This disproves the notion that we are all part of some large middle-class,” Jonas Schytz Juul, a chief analyst for AE, told Politiken newspaper. “The elite is definitely running away from the rest of the Danes.”

Financial crisis
The figures also showed that during the same period, working class Danes experienced a more conservative income increase of 47.9 percent.

The overall increase was particularly stunted by the financial crisis a few years ago.

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