As every year at this point, Barcelona publishes Household Disposable Income Report that reveals which are the neighborhoods with the highest and lowest income in the city , in this case with data from 2021.
And although the report states that the Household Income per capita (RDLpc) of Barcelona increased by 4.8% in relation to 2020, standing at 21,642 euros per year, the reality still shows an immovable picture: the Upper Diagonal (where the private schools that are among the best in the state are concentrated or where buying a home is the most expensive option in the city), is still much richer than the rest of the city with zones that triple the income of the poorest neighborhoods.
Rich neighborhood, poor neighborhood
As last year,the district with the highest RDLpc level is Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, which with 32,850€ exceeds Barcelona’s value by 52%. In contrast, Ciutat Vella has the lowest income per capita, with €15,157, 30% below the city average.
This changes if we take into account the Renta Primària de les Llars (RPL), which is the value that shows the state of the income before the redistributive intervention of the public sector. Taking this into account, Sarrià-Sant Gervasi has a RPLpc that
exceeds the Barcelona average by 84% and the last place goes from Ciutat Vella to Nou Barris, where the RPL is lower than in Ciutat Vella, but whose inequality is somewhat mitigated by the effect of Social Benefits, which in Nou Barris have a much more important effect than in Ciutat Vella.
The Renta of the neighborhoods confirms the trend of the districts. The richest neighborhood charges, on average, three times as much as the poorest neighborhood. At the first end Les Tres Torres, in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, the neighborhood with the highest per capita income in 2021 with an average of 37,800 euros per year.
At the other extreme Ciutat Meridiana, in Nou Barris, with an average income of 10,929 euros, making it the neighborhood with the lowest per capita income in the city in 2021.
The Verde outbreak is the increase in lower wages, which has slightly reduced income inequality between districts. Neighborhoods with below-average incomes had higher growth rates, from 9.5% in Ciutat Vella and 6.4% in Horta-Guinardó, while those with higher incomes increased less, from 4.5% in Gràcia to -0.9% in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.
You can consult the complete report of the City Hall here.