• Already one month before the 2005 elections, TGeraghty reviewed The Economist's discovery of Germany's Surprising Economy.
  
• In May 2006, Jérôme brought a first summary of the who-gets-the-credit debate in Claiming Germany, and a first criticism in Reform does not work.
  
• In November 2006, dvx (who is presently sadly absent) wrote a major critique of a recovery with fewer winners in Germany: an Autumn of Discontent.

For this study, the medium income group (in terms less scared of Marx, middle class) is defined as people with income between 70% and 150% of the median.

The following diagram shows the development of the arithmetic mean (higher) and median (lower) real income. It's rather clear that for the majority, real income continued to fall even during the 2005-6 German recovery:

The next diagram shows the development of the ratio of median and mean separately for East (higher) and West (lower). East Germany is still more egalitarian, but the downwards trend is the same.

To get a better picture of the distribution, DIW didn't look at quintiles or deciles, but the population share of people in certain income segments relative to the median (see key at bottom). The share of the poorest (below 50% of the median; in black) is steadily growing, and so does that of the richest (more than 200% of the median; in white).

What about social mobility?

DIW evaluated movements from and to low (up to 70% of median), medium and high (above 150% of median) income segments from 2002 to 2006, and also from 1996 to 2000. I'll put the latter numbers into parantheses.

• Low-income rising to medium-income: 31.6% (44.2%)
  
• Low-income rising to high-income [rags-to-riches]: 2.2% (2.2%)
  
• Medium-income falling to low-income: 14.4% (11.0%)
  
• Medium-income rising to high-income: 11.1% (9.6%)
  
• High-income falling to low-income: 3.9% (3.9%)
  
• High-income falling to medium-income: 27.6% (32.6%)

There are a lot more interesting data in the study, but I will show only the (updated) trend for something in dvx's earlier diary: satisfaction with one's income. Here, separately according to income group (low-medium-high), and until 2007 (the rest of the study is until 2006):

Here, the glaring fact is that money does make one happier, yet, the relative changes show that just the richest group, which benefitted most, is the only with still decreasing satisfaction: can they ever be pleased?...

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Two days after the release of the DIW real income study, a German paper reported that calculations by the rival Institut für Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (IWG, = Institute for Economics and Society) showed that pensioners' real income will fall 7.5% below the 2003 level by the end of this year.