Pozuelo de Alarcón, Boadilla del Monte, Alcobendas, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Majadahonda, Las Rozas de Madrid, Castelldefels, Madrid, Barcelona and San Sebastián de los Reyes top the ranking of the richest municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. This is clear from the data released this Monday by the Foundation for Applied Economics Studies (Fedea).
The statistics, which collect information on the average personal income of 1,207 municipalities belonging to autonomous communities with a common tax regime between 2017 and 2018, show an increase in wealth of 5.29% per inhabitant during that period, a percentage that decreases to 2 .08% when only those who declare personal income tax are taken into account. The study also shows that there are substantial differences even between the richest municipalities: the average income in Pozuelo de Alarcón in 2018 was up to 30.8% higher than that of the second municipality on the list, Boadilla del Monte, and 2.36 times greater than that of San Sebastián de los Reyes, which occupies tenth position.
On the other side of the scale, the municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants have a lower average income. Almost all of those who appear as the most disadvantaged “maintained” between 2017 and 2018, highlight the authors of the report, Miriam Hortas-Rico and Jorge Onrubia. In fact, the Almería municipality of El Ejido led the ranking in these two years, while in second position is Sanlúcar de Barrameda from Cádiz, which in 2015 occupied the first position.
Two Canarian municipalities, two from Alicante, one from Murcia and two from Andalusia close the list of the ten poorest towns. These are, in increasing order of income, Santa Lucía de Tirajana, Arona, Elda, Lorca, Torrevieja, Orihuela, Utrera and Motril. Vélez-Málaga, which occupied eighth place in 2017, leaves the group.
The greatest growth occurred in Alcobendas (16.69%), Sant Cugat del Vallès (10.95%) and Boadilla del Monte (10.52%). They are followed by Pozuelo de Alarcón, Majadahonda and San Sebastián de los Reyes, with increases of between 9.33% and 4.39%. Below, although with increases of more than 3%, appear Viladecans, Madrid, Logroño and Fuengirola. Likewise, it is notable that the majority of the localities in which wealth grew the most are those that hold the first positions in the ranking of the municipalities with the highest average income per inhabitant.
On the other hand, those that became poorer the most, experiencing the greatest reduction in average personal income, were Molina de Segura (-5.62%), Lorca (-4.56%) and Utrera (-3.58%), which in both cases also appear on the list of the poorest municipalities. Next are El Ejido, Roquetas de Mar, Melilla, Alcalá de Guadaira, Orihuela and Castellón de la Plana, with a drop in the average income per filer of 2%. In total, thirty of the 138 municipalities with the most inhabitants that appear in the ranking are less rich compared to the years 2015-2016, a period in which “the average growth of personal income in Spain was important and very generalized, which which caused only 6 of 138 municipalities to experience a reduction in their average personal income,” the authors indicate.
Just because a municipality appears on the list of those with a higher average income per taxpayer does not mean that all its inhabitants are richer than those of other localities with modest incomes. In this sense, one of the notable aspects of the study is that four of the municipalities with the highest average income are in turn those with the greatest economic differences between their inhabitants, according to the Gini index. These are Alcobendas, Boadilla del Monte, Majadahonda and Pozuelo de Alarcón, the richest and most unequal municipality with more than 50,000 inhabitants. While four of the poorest (Elda, El Ejido, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and Arona) are among the least equitable in relation to average income.
On the other side of the coin are those with the least inequality, among which are Mollet del Vallès, Valdemoro, El Prat de Llobregat, Manresa, Granollers, Rubí, Aranjuez, Alcalá de Henares, Mataró and Pinto. “It is striking that these are localities, all of them belonging to the provinces of Barcelona and Madrid,” highlight Hortas-Rico and Onrubia.
The authors also warn that personal income inequality per personal income tax filer has increased, especially in Torrejón de Ardoz, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Coslada, Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Alcalá de Guadaira, Arganda del Rey, Vélez-Málaga, San Vicente of Raspeig, Arona, Elda and Cerdanyola del Vallès, with an increase in the Gini index ranging from 35% to 12%. On the contrary, it has decreased more intensely in Mollet del Vallès, Valdemoro, Manresa and Alcalá de Henares, with a reduction from approximately 17% to 11%.
