Poverty in Germany remains high. More than one in five people are at risk. About 7 percent are affected by significant material deprivation.
More than 20 percent of society is at risk of poverty, including many children. Photo: Fernando Gutiérrez-Juarez/dpa
WIESBADEN afp | Around a fifth of Germany's population is still at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Last year there were 17.7 million people affected, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden reported on Wednesday. The population proportion was 21.2 percent. The figures remained almost unchanged compared to the previous year. In 2022, 17.5 million people or 21.1 percent of the population were affected.
Any person who has an income below the poverty risk threshold, whose home is affected by significant material and social deprivation, or who lives in a home with very low labor market participation is considered to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion. .
Almost 14.3 percent of the population was at risk of poverty in 2023. A person is considered at risk of poverty if they have less than 60 percent of the median income of the entire population. Last year, the threshold for a person living alone was 1,310 euros net per month. For two adults and two children under 14 years of age, it was 2,751 euros net per month.
6.9 percent of the population was affected by significant material and social deprivation. Concretely, this means that the living conditions of those affected were significantly limited due to lack of money. For example, they couldn't pay their bills.
9.8 percent of the population under 65 years of age lived in a household with very low labor participation. This situation occurs if labor force participation of working household members ages 18 to 64 was less than 20 percent in the year prior to the survey.
For the EU, there was little data from other countries to compare for 2023. Of the results available so far, the lowest proportion of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion is in the Czech Republic, at 12 percent. The provisional leader was Bulgaria with 30 percent. In 2022, Germany's share was 21.1 percent, just below the EU average of 21.6 percent.