Every sixth person in Germany threatened last year poverty, with single-parent families and single-person households being particularly vulnerable. Anxiety grows in the face of winter and changing energy crisis.

According to the Federal Statistical Service, about 13 million people, or 15.8% of the population, were at risk of falling into poverty in 2021. The corresponding figure in 2020 was 13.2 million people. A person is considered at risk of poverty if he has less than 60% of the average income of the entire population of the country, indicates the European Union. For Germany, the limit in 2021 was 15,009 euros per year for one person and 31,520 euros for two adults with two children under 14.

The Office of Statistics notes that, compared to the national average, single-parent households and single-person households are at greater risk. In 2021, 26.6% of people in single-parent households and 26.8% of people living alone were at risk of poverty. In addition, 19.3% of pensioners were at risk of poverty, while among the fully employed, the corresponding figure is limited to 8.6%. Women are at a disadvantage as 16.5% are at risk compared to 15.1% of men.

“The drama we are experiencing is indescribable”

“The drama we are living in right now is indescribable. The situation mainly affects those who already have little,” commented Anne Lenze, professor of sociology at the University of Darmstadt, to the German news agency dpa, explaining that low-income people already spend most of their money on housing and food, while it is impossible to save them to, for example. travel. “Since most of them live in poorly insulated apartments, they will be particularly affected by higher electricity costs,” the professor emphasizes and believes that poverty will increase significantly, and many people will “fall below the living wage,” while she believes that aid from the state is not enough.

According to poverty specialist and 2017 federal presidential candidate Christoph Buterwege, the loss of income during the pandemic is already worsening the situation for a large part of the population, while in some sectors incomes have risen sharply during the pandemic. “So the real problem is the big inequality. The trend in our rich country is to see poverty more and more as a phenomenon of marginalized groups, rather than a situation that has now reached the middle level,” Mr. Buterwege told dpa and warned of the possibility that that “energy and food poverty will become the main social problem of our decade”, but also for the risk of losing social cohesion, because, as he says, among the homeless, drug addicts and illegal immigrants, we tend to impoverish.

^{Source: APE-MEB}