The World's Richest Cities by Personal Net Earnings in 2008

The following table lists cities by a score of the average net personal earnings in 2008, ranked highest to lowest, with the base score being 100 for New York City.

The table list 70 major cities, as reported by UBS. A high score means high wage earners and a low score lower wage earners. For furter explanation, please see the note below the table.

Cities Ranked by Personal Net Earnings in 2008.

Rank	Cities	Index New York =100
1	Zurich	140.3
2	Dublin	132.3
3	Oslo	131.7
4	Geneva	130.4
5	Luxembourg	120.0
6	Copenhagen	114.1
7	London	110.0
8	Helsinki	108.7
9	Frankfurt	102.4
10	Munich	101.4
11	New York	100.0
12	Berlin	98.3
13	Vienna	97.9
14	Los Angeles	96.7
15	Sydney	95.8
16	Chicago	94.1
17	Brussels	93.3
18	Stockholm	92.2
19	Toronto	91.6
20	Tokyo	89.3
21	Montreal	87.7
22	Auckland	87.5
23	Amsterdam	87.3
24	Lyon	83.3
25	Nicosia	83.3
26	Paris	81.4
27	Barcelona	81.4
28	Madrid	78.6
29	Miami	74.4
30	Milan	71.0
31	Dubai	64.2
32	Athens	59.3
33	Rome	59.0
34	Seoul	50.6
35	Lisbon	46.1
36	Singapore	45.0
37	Taipei	43.4
38	Manama	38.1
39	Ljubljana	36.4
40	Sao Paulo	35.9
41	Johannesburg	35.4
42	Hong Kong	35.4
43	Prague	34.7
44	Moscow	31.6
45	Istanbul	31.3
46	Tallinn	29.3
47	Bratislava	26.6
48	Santiago de Chile	26.4
49	Rio de Janeiro	26.1
50	Budapest	25.6
51	Warsaw	24.8
52	Caracas	22.6
53	Vilnius	21.0
54	Riga	21.0
55	Buenos Aires	19.6
56	Lima	18.2
57	Kuala Lumpur	17.8
58	Bucharest	15.9
59	Bogota	15.7
60	Shanghai	15.5
61	Mexico City	14.0
62	Sofia	13.4
63	Kiev	13.1
64	Nairobi	13.0
65	Beijing	12.9
66	Bangkok	12.8
67	Mumbai	10.8
68	Manila	9.8
69	Delhi	9.7
70	Jakarta	8.3

 
Methodology
These calculations are based on wage figures, social security contributions and working hours in 2006 for fourteen widespread professions. Uniform criteria were used with regard to work experience, age, marital status etc. The wage index was weighted by the share of each occupation in overall employment and overall income and also by gender. The figures relate to pay net of taxes and social security contributions. In calculating the 2008 update of the wage index, UBS not only took account of exchange rates and inflation, but also factored in that part of the economic growth was due to productivity improvements and was therefore passed on to employees in the form of higher pay.