How is poverty defined?
The poverty report is based on data from the microcensus, which the Federal Statistical Office collects annually. According to this, people are considered “poor” if their income is less than 60 percent of the median income. For people living alone, that would be EUR 15,000 per year, for a family with two children the limit is EUR 31,500.
How to define the term poverty in an affluent society is discussed again and again, especially in view of millions of starving people in the world. According to the European Commission, the poverty line is not reduced to the “absolute minimum for physical survival”. Rather, it is about the distance to the average standard of living and about being excluded from the material, cultural and social way of life that is the minimum acceptable in the respective country.
Corona and inflation: poverty is increasing
In particular, the pandemic and the way politicians deal with it would have increased poverty. During the pandemic, the federal government’s aid packages were primarily aimed at employees and the self-employed. According to the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband, there would have been little help for people who were already living in poverty or who were on Hartz IV.
In spring 2021, the grand coalition agreed on a one-off payment of 150 euros. Relief programs against inflation were also launched – but dependent on income: the more you earn, the higher the help.
“If you want to fight poverty, you have to touch wealth”
According to the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, the federal government should have focused the relief measures on those people who are particularly burdened by inflation and who are in need. In addition to the housing benefit, the level of Hartz IV and basic old-age security would also have, among other things, but also that BAföG need to be raised significantly, according to the association: the guiding principle should be: not little help for everyone, but sufficient help for those who need it. “A future social policy must permanently strengthen the economic situation of precarious households in order to make this society as a whole more resilient to crises“The association said in a statement.