Can most people in Switzerland afford diamond rings, fur coats and holidaying in St. Moritz?
(© Keystone / Christian Beutler)
A reader wondered if it was true that some people in Switzerland don’t earn enough to afford basic necessities like compulsory health insurance. Another simply asked: Are most Swiss people rich?
Switzerland’s reputation as a rich country is unshakeable. For several consecutive years the Swiss have been found to be richer than anyone else in the world in terms of mean wealth per adult. And just in recent weeks two separate studies have shown the country finishing in the top ten for the highest number of dollar millionaires.
But being rich on paper is only part of the story. In this instalment of our ongoing series verifying claims about Switzerland sent in by readers, swissinfo.ch lifts the veil to find a more mundane reality: when it comes to wealth, it’s all relative.