Pozuelo de Alarcón, Alcobendas, El Ejido, and Sanlúcar de Barrameda registered the highest income inequality among Spanish municipalities with over 50,000 residents during the 2023 fiscal year. The findings come from a recent study published by the Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada (Fedea).
Spain’s Widening Local Wealth Gap
The economic think tank’s report measures the dispersion of wealth across local populations by applying the Gini coefficient.
The Top Ten Disparity Rankings
According to data released by Fedea, the ten municipalities showing the highest level of income disparity in 2023, ranked from largest Gini index to smallest within the top tier, are Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), Alcobendas (Madrid), El Ejido (Almería), Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz), Roquetas de Mar (Almería), Majadahonda (Madrid), Elda (Alicante), Dos Hermanas (Sevilla), Alcalá de Guadaíra (Sevilla), and Torrevieja (Alicante).
“These results show that a high level of inequality can coexist with both very high average personal incomes and quite modest average incomes,” note economists Miriam Hortas and Jorge Onrubia, the authors of the Fedea report.
The Most Egalitarian Localities
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the study identifies the ten municipalities with the lowest income inequality figures for 2023. Three cities in the province of Barcelona lead this group: Sant Boi de Llobregat, Cornellà de Llobregat, and Cerdanyola del Vallès.
The remaining locations making up the most equitable distribution bracket include Aranjuez (Madrid), Granollers (Barcelona), Valdemoro (Madrid), Fuenlabrada (Madrid), Rivas-Vaciamadrid (Madrid), Coslada (Madrid), and Terrassa (Barcelona), according to the Fedea findings.
Year-Over-Year Shifts in Wealth Distribution
Tracking the trajectory of local wage and wealth gaps between 2022 and 2023, the research points to notable upward ticks in income concentration for specific administrative districts.
Fedea reports that the sharpest increases in the Gini index over that twelve-month period occurred in Tres Cantos (Madrid), Colmenar Viejo (Madrid), Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona), and Rincón de la Victoria (Málaga).
