The north-south difference by income level continues to be evident on the map of Spain. Data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) confirms for another year that high incomes are increasingly common in the northern half of the peninsula and low incomes are increasingly common in the southern half . However, when inequality is measured, the dividing line blurs to extend across the entire territory, with particular emphasis on the center.
The INE income atlas, produced on the basis of taxes from the Tax Agency and the Foral Treasury by place of residence of the beneficiary, allows us to know the differences at the level of the Autonomous Communities, provinces, islands, municipalities and census sections, therefore You can view details even by streetsYes, in 2022 data. How was the map drawn then?
Following the model of recent years, Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid) once again presents itself as the municipality of more than 2,000 inhabitants with the highest level of net income per capita, with 29,258 euros compared to 27,167 euros in 2021. Next comes Matadepera (Barcelona), a city which in 2020 took first place ahead of Pozuelo and which recorded in 2022 a net income per capita of 24,814 euros. The third is Boadilla, who revalidates his position to 24,748 euros, above 23,169 of 2021.
From the northern half to the southern half of the peninsula, where the map shows the concentration of the lowest income levels in all of Spain, with a few exceptions. In 2022, year of total reactivation after the pandemicHuesa (Jaén) was the municipality of more than 2,000 inhabitants with the lowest level of net income per capita with 7,603 euros, followed by Iznalloz (Granada) with 7,777 euros and El Palmar de Troya (7,779 euros).
This north-south difference is found in the analysis of the percentage of the population with high and low incomes if analyzed by Autonomous Community, where the highest incomes are concentrated in the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia and the lowest , in Murcia, Extremadura and Andalusia. . And the gap also remains if we look closely at the provincial capitals, with San Sebastian, Madrid and Barcelona in first place and Melilla, Alicante and Ceuta in last position.
The situation reflected in the Atlas coincides with other studies on the same subject, such as the one recently published by the Valencian Institute of Economic Research (Ivie), which designates the Basque Country and Madrid as the most “prosperous” regions, with a figure almost doubled. Extremadura and Andalusia.
The question changes if we measure distributional inequalities. The Gini coefficient, which measures from perfect equity (0) to perfect inequality (100), in this case dissolves north-south differences and is particularly concentrated in the Community of Madrid and its surroundings, on the east coast from Denia to Murcia and Malaga while it extends over the north-north half.
The map shows that inequality is widening in higher-income areas, where wage gaps are widening between populations. For example, if you do zoom in Madrid, red predominates inside the central “almond” and there are few areas, like the one that crosses Madrid Río, from Argüelles or the neighborhoods of Prosperidad and Guindalera, where the wage gap is small enough to appear yellow or green.
