Dark figure of poverty

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The number of unreported cases of poverty - also known as "hidden poverty" - is a technical term from empirical social research that focuses on the dark field of non-utilization of social assistance or "unemployment benefit 2".

definition

A person is covertly poor when he or she is entitled to social assistance or another basic security benefit, such as unemployment benefit II, but does not make use of it. According to a new study by Irene Becker and Richard Hauser, for every three recipients of basic security benefits there are at least two to three other people who are covertly poor. This group of people has a lower income than the basic social security benefits. Older people and the employed are particularly affected. The latter in particular because they often do not know that they are also entitled to social assistance or, since 2005, to unemployment benefit II.

In social medicine , too , there is an increasing number of new experiences with the massive increase in the number of people in need of medical care in Germany in the 21st century. The "German Medical Journal", trade journal of licensed physicians in Germany, announced in April 2005, an absence of more precise data from evidence determined number of 300,000 not covered by health insurance people in German society.

The essay with which the Berlin author Maren Hombrecher won the Book Guild Essay Prize in 2004 dealt with this growing group of people who, in the shadowy regions of affluent society, are dependent on soup kitchens and the cheaper groceries from Deutsche Tafel . In the USA, the German-born social scientist Barbara Ehrenreich caused a sensation with her six-month self-experiment book about the working poor , the permanent poor in contemporary American everyday life who work in three different jobs at the same time.

In the view of the legislature, there is no empirical evidence for the existence of a significant number of hidden poor people, which is why these are not taken into account when assessing standard needs. He explains this in Bundestag printed paper 17/3404, page 88

A more extensive correction of the reference group - for example to clarify the significance of shameful poor people or households - does not take place. There is no empirical evidence of any significant magnitude of this much-discussed phenomenon. This is also because

● Since the introduction of basic security in old age and with reduced earning capacity, it can be assumed that the phenomenon of shameful old-age poverty has at least significantly decreased and

● The replacement of unemployment assistance by basic income support for jobseekers has in turn had a similar effect on people who are not gainfully employed but who are able to work and their households.

At the same time, the information provided by the Federal Government, Bundesdrucksache 17/14282, page 5

The size of the households identified with such a method, whose own funds are insufficient to cover the requirements to be assumed under SGB II and SGB XII but do not receive any benefits, is considerable.

The reason for the exclusion from the calculation of the standard requirement is given here as follows

If this group of people were to be excluded from the reference groups in accordance with applicable law, regardless of the considerable uncertainty in the determination, the households with higher incomes that would replace them would tend to shift the reference group to the middle income range and the determination of standard needs would no longer be the only one On the basis of low incomes, as is appropriate for determining the socio-cultural subsistence level.

literature

  • Irene Becker, Richard Hauser with the assistance of Klaus Kortmann, Tatjana Mika, Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn : dark figure of poverty. Extent and causes of non-utilization of due social assistance benefits. edition sigma, Berlin 2005.
  • Lena Jacobi: The unreported number of poverty: an analysis of the non-utilization of social assistance in Germany (= Potsdam contributions to social research. No. 19). University of Potsdam, Potsdam 2003
  • Barbara Ehrenreich : Work poor: On the way in the service society. Kunstmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-88897-283-3 (Original title Nickel and Dimed . )
  • Helmut Hartmann : need for social assistance and “dark figure of poverty”. Report on the research project on the situation of potentially social assistance beneficiaries. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-17-007496-2 .
  • Rainer Roth : Abuse of social welfare: Who is actually abusing whom? Fachhochschulverlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (2003): Poverty in spite of employment. Analyzes and socio-political consequences. Frankfurt / Main: Campus