The direction is at least positive. Because the number of children in Brandenburg an der Havel in families with Hartz-IV-related, fell further in the past year.
Nevertheless, of the slightly more than 10,000 underage children in the city, almost one in four lives in a family that has to make ends meet with state Hartz IV support. In the neighboring district of Potsdam-Mittelmark it is only every 20th child.
432 of the 2,345 children in Brandenburg an der Havel who are in so-called benefit communities are younger than three years, another 479 are younger than six years.
22.7 percent
The proportion of underage children in Hartz IV households fell from 23.8 to 22.7 percent from December 2019 to December 2020. So it shows the comparison of the Bremen Institute for labor market research and youth occupation promotion (BIAJ) of 401 districts and independent cities in Germany.
Among the under-three-year-olds, the proportion has fallen from 27.6 to 23.9 percent since 2018.
Compared to other German regions, this proportion is very high despite the decline. Only 37 independent cities and districts in Germany have an even higher proportion of Hartz IV children than Brandenburg an der Havel. These include Cottbus and Frankfurt an der Oder, whose values are even less favorable, as Paul M. Schröder from the BIAJ reports.
Potsdam-Mittelmark is doing well
At the socially better end of Germany is the Potsdam-Mittelmark district. Only five percent of minors there live in households that are entitled to Hartz IV benefits. This is the lowest value in the state of Brandenburg, where the average rate is 11.5 percent.
The number of benefit communities in Brandenburg an der Havel has been falling for several years, most recently by around eight percent compared to the previous year. Currently around 4400 families in the city are entitled to Hartz IV.
From Jürgen Lauterbach
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