Mainfranken is still in good shape

The corona crisis is not dragging consumers in Germany into the financial abyss – not yet. The bad end is likely to come, as the debtors atlas presented on Tuesday by the credit agency Creditreform shows. The good news: Mainfranken is still in good shape in places.

In a nationwide comparison, the district of Schweinfurt is in the top group of those urban and rural districts in which the population’s indebtedness is lowest. This year it is 4.95 percent, five years ago it was 5.03 percent. The front runner in Germany is the Eichsttt district with just four percent, followed by the Erlangen-Hchstadt district with 4.77 percent.

The Wrzburg district is in sixth place in the list of 401 municipalities, with the cities of Wrzburg (100th place) and Schweinfurt (251) at the bottom of the list. In the industrial city, every tenth consumer is in debt. By way of comparison: in Bremerhaven, at the bottom of the league at the federal level, it is almost one in four.

Behind all the numbers there are often violent fates of people. Managing Director Stephan Vila from Creditreform subsidiary Boniversum made it clear that the situation could worsen as a result of the Corona crisis: “The state aid measures have mitigated the worst social effects.” Nevertheless, the situation is worrying because hundreds of thousands in the country are in financial need because of short-time work or job loss as a result of the crisis.

Creditreform estimates that in Germany, with its 83 million inhabitants, two million freelancers and self-employed people are currently on the verge of debt because of the Corona crisis. The current lockdown has tightened this, and a staggered increase in debt cases is to be expected.

According to the Debtors’ Atlas, the situation is particularly dramatic for old people. According to this, there are four times as many consumers aged 70 and over in Germany compared to 2013 who are in debt. There are a total of 470,000. Creditreform did not provide figures for Main Franconia.

Old age poverty: food banks have to help more and more often

According to the debtors atlas, the reasons for the increased poverty in old age are manifold. The pension structure contributed to this as much as the fact that there were more and more low-wage jobs.

How difficult everyday life has become for old people in the country is made clear by chairman Jochen Brhl from the association “Tafel Deutschland” in the debtors’ atlas. In 2019, compared to the previous year, there were 20 percent more senior citizens who were dependent on the food being distributed on the boards. The now large proportion of single parents and children who take advantage of the support is also worrying.

Why hide the numbers dangerously

This contrasts with the fact that, according to the Creditreform figures, the amount of debt has fallen slightly this year compared to 2019. Across Germany, it is 9.87 percent and thus below the 10 percent mark for the first time since 2015. In Bavaria it is currently 7.14 percent.

The rate has decreased in almost all federal states, despite Corona. But that is a dangerous concealment of the situation, believes Patrik-Ludwig Hantzsch, head of economic research at Creditreform. “The supposedly positive result is not a sign of relaxation.” The big end is yet to come. Because “the measures to contain the corona crisis mean that consumers in Germany have less money available.

Creditreform also presented figures on Tuesday showing the debt ratios of individual communities and districts in Mainfranken. According to this, the scissors sometimes gape wide apart. In the Schweinfurt city center, for example, almost 15 percent of consumers are in debt, while in the outskirts it is sometimes only five percent.

In general, it is noticeable that people in rural areas are less likely to be in financial mess than in cities. For example, Rannungen, Fuchsstadt (both districts of Bad Kissingen), Bischbrunn (districts of Main-Spessart), Burglauer (districts of Rhn-Grabfeld) or Sommerach (districts of Kitzingen) have values ​​of three percent or less. Other places in Main-Franconia apart from the cities averaged five to six percent.

At the beginning of the pandemic in March, the Wrzburg Creditreform boss Raymond Polyak assumed that the debt in cities like Wrzburg and Schweinfurt would increase in the medium term. One reason for this is that there are many companies located there that could get into major economic difficulties in the course of the crisis. However, there has not yet been a wave of bankruptcies in Mainfranken.