Some will not want to admit it, deny it or belittle it. But the current poverty report makes it clear: Poverty in Germany reached a negative record in 2019. Around 13.2 million people lived in poverty last year, the highest figure in 30 years. This emerges from the poverty report published on Friday by the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband. Accordingly, those who have less than 60 percent of the median income are considered poor.
“What we are experiencing on the part of the federal government is no longer just ignorance of poverty policy, but an already deliberate refusal,” said Ulrich Schneider, General Manager of the Paritätischer Gesamtverband, commenting on the results. Economic successes have not reached the poor for years. While on the one hand the prosperity generated by society as a whole increased, poverty rose in parallel.
Previously there had been a 0.3 percentage point decrease in poverty, but this positive trend did not last long. The poverty rate rose by 0.4 percentage points to 15.9 percent in 2019 compared to the previous year. “In 2016 and 2017 it was observed that the increase in poverty was exclusively due to people with a migration background,” Schneider explained at the press conference on the poverty report. For people without a migration background, the poverty rate fell during these years. This trend is now over, there is more poverty in both groups.
The report also makes it clear that the lack of money varies greatly from region to region. The only federal states in which poverty decreased compared to the previous year are Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg. There is particularly little poverty in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. Bremen, on the other hand, is the negative leader, with one in four living in poverty. “The available data on the regional distribution, development and structure of poverty show Germany as a country deeply torn by growing inequality,” says Schneider. The most problematic federal state is North Rhine-Westphalia, one in five there is poor. In the most populous federal state there is an alarming dynamic, the poverty rate there has risen by 33 percent since 2006, two and a half times as high as the overall German rate.
The effects of the corona pandemic will accelerate the rise in poverty even further. “Corona only affects a minority economically and apparently especially those in employment with low incomes,” Schneider stated. Accordingly, poverty will probably rise again. The question arises, what is the best remedy for development. According to Schneider, neither education nor integration into the labor market. As a political goal, there is nothing wrong with either of these, but this does not help against the problems of poverty.
What good is a good education if the affected children still have to grow up in poverty? What good is labor market policy when almost two thirds of the poor are already employed and another large proportion are already retired? “So it doesn’t help to avoid it. If we really want to eradicate poverty, we have to increase transfer payments, ”concluded Schneider.
The paritätische wants the immediate increase in financial support services for poor people, reforms of social security and basic child security. With a Hartz IV standard rate of 644 euros, income poverty would practically be eliminated, according to Schneider. That would be 212 euros more than before. In view of the poverty report, Anja Piehl, member of the board of directors of the German Trade Union Federation, called for the low-wage swamp to dry up permanently. Otherwise there is a risk that people who are poor despite work will turn away in frustration. “This not only obscures democratic participation, it also endangers social peace,” said Piehl. »Poverty despite gainful employment is and will remain a special scandal in Germany in the 21st century.«
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