Born in Utrecht, Somermeyer started to study at the Delft University of Technology late 1930s. After one year he shifted to study law at the Leiden University. Later in 1965 he received his PhD from Jan Tinbergen at the Erasmus University Rotterdam for his study of income inequality conducted at the Statistics Netherlands entitled "Inkomensongelijkheid: een analyse van spreiding en scheefheid van inkomensverdelingen in Nederland."
