Almost 14 million people in Germany are poor. The joint general association has now made this public. Above all, the corona pandemic and inflation have driven up the development of the poverty rate.
According to the Paritätischer Gesamtverband, poverty in Germany has reached record levels. In 2021, the poverty rate had risen to a high of 16.6 percent, the association said on Wednesday. “Accordingly, 13.8 million people in this country must currently be counted among the poor, 600,000 more than before the pandemic.” Due to the high inflation, a further deterioration in the situation is to be expected.
According to an EU standard, the parity classifies all people whose income is below 60 percent of the median income in Germany as poor. The entire household net is included in the calculation, i.e. in addition to wages, pension and unemployment benefit, housing benefit and child benefit.
For 2020, the Paritätische had calculated a poverty rate of 16.1 percent and given the number of those affected as 13.4 million. In the first year of the pandemic, “the various protective shields and emergency measures” of the federal government and the federal states ensured “that poverty only increased relatively moderately despite the economic slump and the rapid increase in unemployment,” the association said on Wednesday.
Early in the well-deserved retirement. Concrete strategies for old-age provision. From statutory pension insurance to flexible retirement (advertisement)
In 2021, the economic effects of the pandemic “apparently had a full impact on the development of poverty,” it said. The general manager of the parity, Ulrich Schneider, called the study results “shocking”.
According to the information, poverty increased unusually sharply among those in work, especially among the self-employed, where the rate rose from nine to 13.1 percent. The rate among pensioners was 17.9 percent and among children and young people even 20.8 percent – both highs.
The parity also pointed to major differences between the federal states. “While Schleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Baden-Württemberg and above all Bavaria stand out positively, five federal states have above-average poverty rates: North Rhine-Westphalia, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Bremen, at the bottom, lags far behind with a poverty rate of 28 percent.” The association described the Ruhr area as “the number one problem region in terms of poverty policy”.
The Paritätische called the Federal Government’s previous relief measures in view of the high inflation “unfair and insufficient”. “We have absolutely no understanding of the fact that the federal government is pouring water across the country, providing support where it is not needed at all and only providing completely inadequate help where it is urgently needed,” criticized Schneider.
The association called for a new package of measures that had to start with “care services”. Specifically, it is about an increase in the standard rates in the basic security as well as the housing allowance and the student loans. This is the most effective lever “to quickly relieve lower incomes, which has a lasting effect and does not fizzle out again after a short time”.
Lidl is now using the 5D rule nationwide. It applies to meat and sausage products that can only come from German production. The competition for Aldi, Rewe and Co. now also wants to follow suit.
From 2035, only new cars without CO2 emissions will be registered in the EU. The environment ministers of the 27 EU countries agreed on this after lengthy negotiations on Wednesday night in Luxembourg.
The additional contributions for health insurance companies are expected to increase by 0.3 percentage points in 2023. That said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Tuesday in Berlin.