Ledgerly Is It Peanuts? Relative Scale

What it is for

Headlines love big numbers: a hundred-million donation, a billion-euro fine, a record bonus. Without a scale they are hard to judge. Is a $100 million gift generous, or is it the equivalent of you dropping a coin in a hat? This tool answers by keeping the proportion and changing the owner: it takes the amount as a share of the payer's net worth and applies the same share to your money.

It also shows how long you would work for the equivalent, how many years of your income the full amount represents, what it means per person of a country, and — in reverse — what your own small gift would look like at the scale of a large fortune. All numbers are your inputs; the only data the tool adds is the optional median household wealth from the ECB survey.

Worked example

A donor with an estimated $50 billion fortune gives $100 million. You have $120,000 net worth and $52,000 net income from 1,800 working hours a year.

• Share of their net worth: 0.2 %.
• For you, that is like: $240.
• Your working time: about 8.3 hours.

So the headline gift corresponds to roughly a day of your work — generous, but not life-changing for the giver.

A second case: a €1 billion pledge from a €30 billion fortune is 3.3 % of it. For someone with €80,000 net worth and €38,000 income, that is like giving €2,667, about 119 hours of work. Shared among Germany's 83.5 million people it is €11.98 per person, and the same 3.3 % of a median German household's net wealth (€106,700 in the ECB survey) is €3,557.

The reverse check works the other way: if your net worth is €60,000 and you give €50, the same share of a €200 billion fortune would be €166.67 million.

How to read the result

• Share of their net worth is the core figure; very small shares are shown "per million".
• For you, that is like applies that share to your own net worth.
• Your working time divides that equivalent by your hourly income (net income ÷ working hours).
• Years of your net income tells you how long you would need to earn the full amount.
• Per person spreads the amount over a population; median household uses the survey median for the chosen country (euro only).
• Your gift at their scale is the reverse comparison.

Tips and common mistakes

• Published fortunes are estimates that move with share prices; use a recent figure and treat the result as an order of magnitude.
• Compare like with like: a pledge paid over ten years is not a one-off payment from personal wealth.
• For fines on companies, compare with the company's annual profit or revenue instead of a person's wealth — enter that figure as the payer's "net worth".
• If your net worth is close to zero, the wealth equivalent is tiny; use the working-time and years-of-income rows instead.

FAQ

Why compare with wealth and not with income?

Large gifts usually come out of wealth. You can still enter an annual income as the payer's figure if that is the fairer base.

Where does the median household wealth come from?

From the ECB Household Finance and Consumption Survey, wave 2021, table J3. It is only offered for euro amounts.

Does the tool look up fortunes or populations?

No. You enter both, so you can use the source you trust and the date you need.