Relative poverty

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The term relative poverty describes poverty in comparison to the respective social (including state, socio-geographical) environment of a person.

Poverty line

Relative poverty refers to various statistical measures for a society. Often is given to a certain ratio of the weighted individual income for the median of the net - equivalent income stopped. In politics and research, poverty lines are common at 40%, 50% or 60% of the median. If the weighted net income of households or individuals falls below this limit, they are considered poor. The poverty rate then measures the ratio of this group to the total population. The complement to the poverty line is the wealth line .

Absolute poverty compared to relative poverty

A distinction is made between an absolute and a relative concept of poverty. The first is still used today in the context of development policy and measures the actual underfunding of households or individuals with income (see absolute poverty line ). The second term, on the other hand, says nothing about people's actual material standard of living, but merely measures the distance between their income and social standards.

When calculating the poverty rate, the differences in income and the cost of living within the total population under consideration are disregarded.

As with any statistical quantity, different results are obtained depending on the total amount on which the measurement is based. If the measure of the poverty rate is applied more detailed, i.e. not the population of the state but that of a smaller regional unit (region, state, etc.) as the total population, differences that exist within the respective regional unit become more apparent - e.g. differences between residents of Large cities and their surrounding areas.

Data sources

To measure income distributions and poverty, disaggregated data from household surveys are necessary. Various official statistics surveys are available in Germany for this purpose: The microcensus is characterized by a very large sample and is a mandatory survey , which also includes data on very poor and very rich people. However, the income measurement is only very roughly based on a self-assessment of the current monthly net income. The voluntary official surveys of sample income and expenditure and EU-SILC are much more precise . These record all types of income in detail, e.g. B. also irregular income components such as Christmas bonus. The EU-SILC statistics, harmonized across Europe, also offer the possibility of international comparisons. For all three official surveys, data files for research purposes are made available on request.

A non-official, but often used source is the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) of the German Institute for Economic Research ( DIW ). This is collected annually and is also characterized by detailed income recording. The SOEP can also apply for research data sets.

Since experience shows that recipients of high incomes rarely take part in voluntary surveys, the distribution of their income can best be measured with data from income tax statistics. However, this is only created every three years and is only suitable for experienced researchers due to its scope and complexity.

criticism

The wealth and poverty rates given by the Federal Statistical Office are only partially meaningful, as the underlying data are flawed due to the survey method using voluntary self-disclosure of a population sample every five years (income and consumer sample EVS ). The largest part of the self-employed and property income is not recorded due to a lack of data due to the decreasing willingness of respondents to provide information with increasing income and assets and therefore only household net income up to the cut-off limit of € 18,000 / month is taken into account in the calculations. The highest incomes are not included in the distribution calculations and the self-employed profits that are not withdrawn are not recorded. Also not included are people in communal accommodation, e.g. residents of nursing homes and the homeless.

As a result, the statistically recorded total income of the self-employed and from assets , for example investment income and rents, is lower than the actual income in the national accounts (VGR) . The actual unequal distribution is therefore greater than the calculated and officially published one, because the wealth rates and also the poverty rate statistically determined in this way are lower than the actual ones.

In 2008, the difference between the statistical self-employed and property income of the EVS, at 139 billion euros, compared to the similar income total of 477 billion euros in the national accounts, was around 338 billion euros. Around 71% of this income was not recorded by the EVS and is not shown in the distribution calculations and thus in the unequal distribution measures such as the Gini index . According to the Federal Statistical Office, “this indicates a fundamental problem with measuring self-employed and property income in (voluntary) household surveys”.

Influence of changes on the poverty line

The poverty line is calculated by the WHO, OECD and EU using the median . If the poverty line were calculated using the arithmetic mean (average in the narrower sense), the emigration or loss of wealth of a rich person would lower the average and reduce relative poverty in a country and, conversely, would increase relative poverty if there were no changes in other income earners a non-poor could increase his income. This point of criticism applies to some welfare functions.

  • Rich get richer → no change. If, on the other hand, the median is used - as is the case with the EU method - then changes in income for people whose incomes are above or below the median before and after the change have no influence on the median and the poverty line. How the incomes of the top earners (more precisely: the incomes of the approx. 49% higher earners) develop is therefore irrelevant for the poverty line.
  • Middle earners earn more → more people are considered poor. The number of people who are considered to be “relatively poor” increases, however, when the incomes of middle earners increase, but those of the lower income group remain the same. This is due to the dependence of this definition of poverty on the median; this is the income of those people whose income is in the middle of society (i.e. less or as much as 50% of the population and more or as much as the other 50%).
  • Everyone earns 10% more → number of relatively poor people constant. Anyone who now has less than a certain percentage of the average income available (e.g. 60%) would also, in the event that all incomes e.g. B. increase by 10%, have less than this percentage of the average. In relation to the other people he would remain (relatively) someone who has comparatively little, ie is “relatively poor”.
  • Changes to the survey methods, completeness or incompleteness of the data → see section above: Data sources - criticism.

Further definitions

Instead of the median, the welfare function proposed by Amartya Sen and James Foster can be used, which for Sen is based on the Gini coefficient and for Foster on a Theil index .

More recent approaches in empirical social research attempt to capture poverty in several dimensions and to overcome the dichotomy poor / not poor by using the fuzzy set theory .

Consequences of relative poverty in industrialized countries

Relative poverty also manifests itself through socio-cultural impoverishment, which means the lack of participation in certain social activities as a result of the lack of financial resources (such as going to the theater or cinema, school trips).

health

For children and adults, poverty leads to lower health opportunities and higher risk of illness, as the systematic overview by Klaus Hurrelmann and Matthias Richter shows.

Family life

Unemployment and poverty often lead to a deterioration in the quality of the marital partnership. There are frequent conflicts, little mutual support and little satisfaction with the partner. These crises in the partnership impair the parents' ability to respond appropriately to the needs of their children. The parents are less supportive in this case. There is restrictive and inconsistent parenting behavior. Families that are dominated by men in a patriarchal way are less able to deal with poverty.

children

The consequences of poverty on children are better understood than the consequences of poverty on adults. Poor children are physically, mentally and mentally less healthy than their wealthier peers. They achieve poorer school-leaving qualifications and are more affected by a variety of social problems such as the motherhood of minors . However, you have to see it differently. Poor children don't have to be unhappy automatically. Rather, studies such as those by Elder (1974), Caplan (1992), Becker (1998) and Elder & Conger (2000) show that families can compensate for poverty under certain conditions.

White warns of a "one-sided (n) deficit and victim perspective"

Indeed, the family can act as a "buffer". This means that parents can succeed in ensuring that their children feel the effects of poverty less or not at all.

However, parents should not be blamed for the consequences of their children's poverty. From Weiss's point of view, it would be “a mistake, in the sense of blaming the victims, to shift responsibility for economic and social and cultural conditions from poverty to the people who have to endure them [...] and the parents unilaterally To assign blame for possible developmental impairments of their children ” .

education

Education seems to be able to counter the negative effects of poverty. Educated parents tend to resolve disputes objectively. They tend to be more reflective and have more self-control. Conflicts arising from poverty among low-educated people, on the other hand, tend to be fought in an unsobjective manner. This is because they lack important resources for a successful subjective processing of the situation. Rigid role models and a restrictive parenting style make it difficult for the lower classes to deal constructively with the situation.

Poor children in Germany have poorer educational opportunities, but that is not only due to poverty. Lauterbach notes:

"[It] can by no means be said that all children are equally negatively affected by [...] the poverty situation in the parental home [...] In the rarest cases, a causal effect can be assumed, which consists in the fact that poverty and socioeconomic deprivation directly affect determine parental educational decisions and the educational success of children. If there were this causal relationship, then the socio-economic deprivation would have the same effects on their educational opportunities for all children affected by it . However, model estimates show [...] dwindling effects on poverty if the human capacities of the parents and the social origins of the children are controlled. These findings suggest that the poverty-related educational disadvantage could also arise from an intensification of existing deficits in the socialization and education of children. [...] The unfavorable conditions for the children are intensified by economic losses and their consequences. "

According to a study by the Arbeiterwohlfahrt, of 100 children who were already considered poor during their kindergarten age, only four made it to high school after primary school.

But one has to consider that these children were often not only poor, but also multiple deprived .

So here not only the effects of poverty but also the effects of other disadvantages were measured. Becker and Nietfeld (1999) dealt with the children of unemployed parents in Dresden. They were able to prove that unemployment of the parents and poverty worsen the educational opportunities of the children affected by it. However, when other variables are checked, it is also noticeable that the effects of unemployment and socio-economic deprivation decrease. That means: the influence of poverty and unemployment is smaller than one would think at the beginning of the study. The cultural capital is more important. In particular, educationally disadvantaged groups tend to make risk-averse educational decisions, which means that in case of doubt they tend to choose lower educational decisions. Poor families are often unable to take part in cultural life, as theater, opera and music lessons are too expensive for the children. Works of art or books are also rarely bought. There is a cultural discrepancy between family and school. The children affected are insufficiently prepared for the performance requirements of the school, their motivation to learn and social skills are deficient.

However, poverty and unemployment almost only have negative consequences for poorly educated parents. More educated parents are obviously better able to compensate for the problems that this entails.

The following table is taken from "Unemployment and educational opportunities for children in the transformation process" by Becker and Nietfeld:

Education of the head of
household		 Child attends
secondary school		 Child attends
secondary school		 Child attends
high school
Secondary school level 30.4% 39.1% 30.4%
Realschule level 23.7% 43.3% 33.0%
High school level 8.4% 30.1% 61.4%

Note: as is customary in East Germany, almost all parents had vocational training. Therefore only the school leaving certificate was taken into account. The secondary school level was POS up to the 8th grade, the secondary school level POS up to the tenth grade, and the high school level qualification from the EOS.

character

Ruby Payne argues that growing up in poverty has important character effects. To survive in poverty, poor children would have to be non-verbal and respond immediately to sensations. In school, however, this would be a disadvantage for them. The school is a middle class institution. Here it is important to be able to verbalize thoughts, to be able to abstract them and to plan ahead. Skills that poor children have to learn first.

According to Walter Mischel, poor children have less self-control and are more likely to seek immediate satisfaction of their needs. This is bad because it plays an important role in the middle class institution of school self-regulation.

Donna Beegle believes that poor families and wealthier families live in different cultures:

  • Oral culture prevails in poor families . For members of the oral culture, sensory experiences are important. Oral culture is characterized by spontaneity, orientation towards the present, emphasis on emotions and the ability to see the “big picture”.
  • In wealthy families, on the other hand, the written culture prevails . It values ​​self-discipline, the ability to defer rewards, the ability to act strategically and plan, the ability to set goals and take steps to achieve them, technical skills, and analytical skills.

Cognitive development

In standardized tests, longitudinal studies show significant losses in general intelligence, language skills and school performance. The duration of poverty proved to be a particularly important factor for the extent of the cognitive deficits.

In Germany, children from families who have lived in poverty for a long time have an average IQ 9 points lower than children from families that have never been impoverished. Mind you, this is about average values. The IQs of both groups are normally distributed, that is, they follow the shape of a bell curve. The apex of the bell curve, however, is 100 for children who have never been poor and 91 for children living in poverty. So there are both very intelligent poor children and very intelligent rich children. These results say nothing about the IQ of a single child living in poverty or wealth. But they do say that among poor children the percentage of children who run the risk of failing school is greatly increased.

Similar differences in intelligence between poor and never-been-poor children were also found in the USA. The longer a child lives in poverty, the more likely they are to have cognitive deficits. Children who were poor in early childhood have greater cognitive deficits than children who only became impoverished later in their lives.

Studies show that the low IQ of children from poor families can mainly be explained by environmental factors. While intelligence is largely inherited in the middle class , the low IQ of children from impoverished sections of the population can mainly be explained by a lack of support, poor nutrition and poor schools. Gabarino was able to show for poor children in the USA, however, that poverty alone hardly influences IQ development, but that other risk factors must also be present. Another longitudinal study came to the same conclusion. One or two risk factors had very little effect on cognitive development. However, if more were added, the effects were strong. Children who were affected by eight to nine risk factors even had an IQ that was on average 30 points lower than children with no stress.

Efforts have already been made in the US to change this. It has been shown that intelligence development can be promoted with special programs. However, critics argue that since intelligence tests are constructed by middle-class individuals, they do not measure the true abilities of poor children.

Resilience research

Resilience research emerged in the United States as a reaction to poverty research. Resilience is understood as the ability to survive difficult life situations unscathed. Resilience researchers such as Caplan or Haines complain that the weaknesses of poor families and people are seen too much and the strengths too little. Family cohesion, collectivism and motivation to achieve are considered strengths of some poor sections of the population.

Resilience research looks at what skills an individual must have in order to be able to deal constructively with poverty. She has identified individual ethnic and social groups who achieve something despite poverty. For example, the children of Vietnamese boat people in the US performed better than children of the US middle class. The Jewish minority went from an extremely poor to an extremely rich ethnic group in two generations. Children from middle-class US families impoverished by the Great Depression grew into high-performing, law-abiding citizens. Many families of American farmers were impoverished by the agricultural crisis of the 1980s. Their children did well in school. They were well integrated socially. In Germany, the children of Vietnamese contract workers in particular draw attention to themselves with good school grades despite their poverty. The Greek minority found its way out of poverty into the middle of society within two generations. It is the same with the Spanish minority. Another successful poor population group are Jewish immigrants from the CIS.

Germany

Share of median net equivalent income Annual income Monthly income affected population
Median 100% € 18,768 1564 € 50%
at risk of poverty 60% € 10,274 € 856 15.1%
Subsistence level (43%) € 7,365 € 614
poor 40% 6894 € € 571 4%

The monthly net equivalent income calculated by the Federal Statistical Office for 2003 was € 1,564 nationwide, € 1,624 in the western German states and € 1,335 in the eastern German states. According to the EU criteria for the at-risk-of-poverty line (60%), the federal German at-risk-of-poverty line is € 10,274 per year or € 856 per month (at risk of poverty: old federal states 12%, new federal states 17%). A net equivalent income of 40% is considered poor , which is € 6849 annually or an average of € 571 per month. The socio-cultural subsistence level , which is determined by the federal government on the basis of consumer surveys by the Federal Statistical Office, is 7,356 euros per year for an adult individual. For a married couple it is 12,240 euros. For a child it is 3,684 euros.

Poverty rates of some population groups in the FRG
(based on data from the microcensus)
group Poverty rate
Total self-employed 8.7%
Self-employed without employees 10.0%
Self-employed with 1 to 4 employees 7.3%
Self-employed with 5 or more employees 4.6%
Total workers 7.5%
Semi-skilled and unskilled 10.6%
Skilled workers 5.2%
Total employees 2.9%
executing employees 6.9%
simple employees 4.3%
Employees with difficult jobs 2.1%
Source (PDF file) ( Memento from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).

According to figures from the “Second Poverty and Wealth Report” submitted by the Federal Government in March 2005, in 2003 13.5 percent of the population were considered to be living in relative poverty. In 2002 it was 12.7 percent, in 1998 it was 12.1 percent.

The union-related Institute for Macroeconomics and Business Cycle Research (IMK) found the following change between 2000 and 2006. In percent of the German population: high-income class: 18.8 percent to 20.5 percent, middle class 62.3 percent to 54.1 percent, and poverty-risk layers from 18.9 percent to 25.4 percent. For the first time in many years, a quarter of the German population is at risk of poverty.

The majority of people living in relative poverty are unemployed. But there is also working poverty . According to data from the 96 Microcensus , 5.5 percent of all employed persons in Germany were considered poor. The self-employed were particularly affected by poverty despite work. 8.7 percent of the self-employed were considered poor.

Students are more often affected by relative income poverty. Since students, with the exception of BAföG, can not receive any social benefits, many of them live below the officially established poverty line. Students living in shared flats are counted as one-person households, as long as everyone does the business for themselves. This fact, like the number of students living alone, increases the proportion of single-person households affected by poverty (see figure). It is assumed that if the students were not included, the number of poor single-person households would be very low.

Poverty in Germany is solidifying. According to a report by the DIW, the main victims of solidified poverty are still workers , especially working-class families with a migration background or several children. To interpret poverty either as a problem of a culturally neglected New Underclass or to dramatize it as a collective threat of decline for the whole of society is not real.

The Federal Agency for Civic Education summarizes:

“The following population groups in particular are at risk from the high risk of poverty: early school leavers and young people and adults with poor professional qualifications (often from immigrant families); Families with long-term unemployed; Pregnant women; single women; young families with small children, migrant families and families with many children. "

According to UNICEF, children live in poverty more than the average. Depending on which poverty line you choose, between 5.9 percent and 14.2 percent of children live in poverty.

Poverty in the FRG

According to the 2007 Kinderreport study by the German Children's Fund , every 6th child in Germany is now dependent on social assistance. This means that children live much more often than adults on social assistance. The trend is dramatic, as the number of children in poverty in Germany doubles every 10th year. In 1965, every 75th child under the age of seven was dependent on social assistance, in 2007 it was every 6th child. Children from immigrant families are particularly affected.

state Share of children receiving social benefits (social allowance) Share of people who receive social benefits (ALG II and social allowance)
Bavaria 6.6% 3.9%
Baden-Württemberg 7.2% 4.1%
Rhineland-Palatinate 9.9% 5.5%
Hesse 12.0% 6.5%
Lower Saxony 13.5% 7.6%
North Rhine-Westphalia 14.0% 8.1%
Saarland 14.0% 7.4%
Schleswig-Holstein 14.4% 8.2%
Hamburg 20.8% 10.6%
Thuringia 20.8% 10.4%
Brandenburg 21.5% 12.0%
Saxony 22.8% 11.8%
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 27.8% 14.9%
Saxony-Anhalt 27.9% 14.2%
Bremen 28.1% 13.8%
Berlin 30.7% 15.2%
Status: June 2005 

There are strong regional differences. According to research by the Ruhr University in Bochum, only 6.6% of children in wealthy Bavaria can be described as poor, compared to 30.7% in Berlin (receipt of social allowance was considered an indicator of poverty ). The poverty rates are highest in the northern and eastern federal states.

(Note on the table: There is a dispute among academics as to whether receiving social benefits is a good indicator of poverty. Some argue that those who receive social benefits are no longer poor, as social benefits would ensure the cultural subsistence level. Most researchers close does not accept this opinion.)

According to the results of a research project by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, divorces and separations increase the risk of poverty for both genders; in particular, the poverty rate among women rises dramatically in the first year of separation.

Old-age poverty

In contrast to the development of child poverty, old-age poverty in Germany declined at the turn of the millennium: from 13.3 percent in 1998 to 11.4 percent in 2003. In the longer term, it is expected to rise again because the current large number of unemployed , part-time workers , mini-jobbers and low- wage earners have lower pensions and, in general, the pension level of all future pensioners (and all current employees ) has been lowered in the course of the pension reform . In the meantime, old-age poverty is on the rise again: in 2006, one in ten retirees was at risk of old-age poverty, and in 2013 it was one in seven.

One-person households with a monthly net income of less than 892 euros were considered to be poor in old age in 2013 in the sense of an income of less than 60% of the median. It should be noted that assets and benefits from owner-occupied residential property are not taken into account when calculating poverty in old age. Private retirement reserves are thus taken into account to the extent that they generate income such as interest, dividends, rent or lease income, royalties or the like.

In old age you go begging sculpture in Hamburg

According to a study presented by the German Institute for Old Age Provision (DIA) in 2005, almost every third citizen is threatened with impoverishment in old age. This was justified with the increasing life expectancy , the reforms of 2001 and 2004, which lowered the statutory pension level by around 18 percent, and the lack of willingness and ability to provide for private old age . The social expert of the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband in Germany, Ulrich Schneider , expressed his fear in November 2006: “Old-age poverty will increase significantly” . In fact, according to preliminary data from the Federal Statistical Office, there was an increase in state transfer payments for basic social security at the age of 12.7 percent to 3.5 billion euros. More recent studies try to estimate future poverty in old age and also come to the conclusion that the risk of old-age poverty will increase for certain groups.

Women are more likely to suffer from poverty in old age than men. The reasons for this are the time spent bringing up children and the lower wage level. Since 2008, a new maintenance law no longer provides for basic maintenance maintenance until the end of life for divorced people. This legislation is particularly detrimental to housewives who have hardly paid into the pension fund themselves and cannot count on maintenance from their ex-husband in addition to their own pension after a divorce.

The increase in precarious employment , the reduction in the crediting of school and university periods for the amount of pensions and the tax burden due to the Retirement Income Act all contribute to the risk of old-age poverty among university graduates.

In 2006, 14 percent of people over 65 years of age were at risk of poverty in the former federal territory, and 9 percent in the new federal states and Berlin.

Unlike those divorced since 1977 in the old federal states or in Germany as a whole, divorced people in the GDR did not receive any pension adjustment from their ex-spouse ; With the Unification Treaty, the ex-husbands' pensions were grandfathered. Downtime and periods of family-related part-time work therefore have a more negative impact on retirement benefits for them than for other divorced people, so that they are less protected against old-age poverty.

Number of employed persons aged 65 and over. Results for a reporting week in spring up to 2004; from 2005 annual average results, as well as changed survey and extrapolation procedures.

Some professional groups are more affected by old-age poverty than others.

As a needs-based social benefit in old age in Germany, in addition to the pension, assistance with livelihood or, once the regular old-age pension has been reached, basic security in old age and in the case of reduced earning capacity comes into effect. Since own and derived pensions and housing benefit are given priority, only supplementary basic security may be paid out. In December 2016, a total of 1,026,000 people received basic security in old age and with reduced earning capacity; Of these, 526,000 people (51.2% of those receiving basic income support) received basic income support in old age.

The estimate of poverty in old age is fraught with great uncertainty. In 2019 there are nine million pensioners who receive less than 900 euros (= 60% of the median income) as a pension, although this does not consider household income and private provision, property and, if applicable, additional earnings are not taken into account. The poverty report of the paritätischen welfare association based on the microcensus comes to the conclusion that three million pensioners live in households with less than 60% of the median household income, which corresponds to 16% of the pensioners, whereby also here property is not considered. The number of people receiving basic security in old age, on the other hand, is 500,000, although this figure does not indicate actual poverty in old age either, as there is a high number of unreported cases: It is estimated that two thirds of those who would be entitled to it do not apply for basic security in old age .

Rising poverty in old age is cited as one of the reasons why the number of employed pensioners has almost tripled since the turn of the millennium. A good half of employed pensioners and almost two thirds of employed pensioners state that they are dependent on the additional income.

The taboo and the term "socially weak"

Although poverty is increasing in Germany, it is rarely referred to as poverty. In recent years, the term representative social society used increasingly in the form substantivized socially disadvantaged . The Arbeiterwohlfahrt rejects the use of the term “socially weak” because, in their opinion, it simulates a lack of social competence. “These 'socially weak'” , according to their federal chairman Wilhelm Schmidt, “are anything but socially weak. Most [financially weak] parents are required to have a strength that is difficult to imagine, to cope with their situation on a daily basis and to care for their children. ” This term is also avoided in research on poverty and education. This is counteracted by poverty reporting, which can be carried out by state organs for the entire state or by associations such as trade unions or welfare organizations for individual population groups. This is usually a time series comparison.

The Federal Government's 2nd Poverty Report from 2005 states: “Ultimately, an indirect determination of poverty, such as income poverty, falls short if other factors (e.g. assets, debts, health, education, unemployment) combine with the same income each have a different position in the equivalence scale. "

The term “ lower class ” or “ new lower class ” is similarly controversial (see there) .

Switzerland

Despite economic growth, there is also poverty in Switzerland. In 2005 around 237,000 people were dependent on state support. The social assistance quota was thus 3.3 percent. The social welfare rate was lower in the country than in the city. The social welfare risk is strongly dependent on the type of family. Children and young people who grow up with one parent or in large families are particularly at risk. Children and young people are particularly often poor. With a share of 31 percent, they are clearly overrepresented among those receiving social assistance. Their share in the population is only 21 percent. Single parents find themselves in poverty more than the average: almost 17 percent of households with only one parent received social assistance in 2005.

Austria

Residents of the Vienna sewer system around 1900, when there was no social network.

Since 2003, indicators on the risk of poverty and social inclusion have been calculated in Austria as part of the EU-SILC Survey. According to the definition of the Europe 2020 strategy, 1,472,000 people in Austria were at risk of poverty or exclusion in 2019, which corresponds to 16.9% of the total Austrian population. The indicator “at risk of poverty and exclusion” is made up of the target groups “at risk of poverty”, “considerable material deprivation” and “people in households with no or very low work intensity”.

The at-risk-of-poverty threshold is 60 percent of the median income. Around every sixth person has to get by on less than 1,286 euros (single) per month. Women are at a slightly disproportionately high risk of poverty (at 18 percent).

"Considerably materially deprived" are people who have certain characteristics, such as: B. arrears on rent, inability to make unexpected expenses, not being able to heat the apartment, not being able to go on vacation once a year or not having a washing machine.

Households with no or very low work intensity are households whose members fill less than 20% of their total work potential.

The objective of the Europe 2020 strategy was to reduce the number of people affected or threatened by poverty or social exclusion across the EU by a total of 20 million by 2020. Within this European strategy, the Austrian goal of reducing poverty by 235,000 people could almost be achieved one year later than planned. The number of people at risk of poverty or exclusion from 1,699,000 (20.6% of the population) in 2008 was reduced by 227,000 to the value of 1,472,000 (16.9% of the population) by 2019

In Austria, people with a migration background, people with disabilities, long-term unemployed, single women in retirement and single mothers are particularly at risk of poverty

According to a report by the Poverty Conference , data on in- work poverty are available for the first time : In Austria 57,000 people (2003) are affected by poverty despite work. Furthermore, the degree of the risk of poverty depends on the type of employment . According to Martin Schenk of the Poverty Conference, part-time workers with up to 20 hours of work per week have “a threefold risk of being at risk of poverty for 21 to 30 hours, twice as high as those who are employed between 31 and 40 hours”.

Furthermore, the shadow report of the Poverty Conference on the 2nd National Action Plan for Social Inclusion 2003-2005 by the Austrian Federal Government criticizes the fact that long-term unemployed people and migrants are completely absent from this plan.

United States

A family of four is considered poor (2004) if they can spend less than $ 19,310 a year. For single people, the limit is $ 9,650. According to the August 2005 Census Bureau Poverty Report, the number of people with incomes below the poverty line in the United States rose for the fourth consecutive year in 2004. 12.7 percent of the population or 37 million people are poor. This is an increase of 0.2 percentage points over the previous year. The increase is mainly due to the higher proportion of whites.

As in all developed countries, children in the United States are the group that is most likely to be poor. However, there is a decreasing trend in child poverty in the United States .


Ethnic Child Poverty Rate in the United States
year All in all African American Hispanics
1996 20.5% 39.9% 40.3%
2001 16.3% 30.2% 28.0%
Source ( Memento from September 28, 2006 in the web archive archive.today )

Since the 1990s there has been no social assistance in the USA , as is customary in Germany. In 1992 the so-called Family Cap was introduced in New Jersey. Women who become pregnant while receiving government support do not receive additional government support for the next child. Today, 22 US states have family caps .

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) of 1996 reorganized state social welfare and combined previous welfare benefits into a single program, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) , and set tight time limits, in particular a maximum limit of life-long five years, for federally financed social assistance. After two years of receipt, in order to continue receiving benefits, welfare recipients must work at least 30 hours a week in public work programs. This social welfare linked to work obligations is also known as workfare . The social benefits can also be below the minimum wage per hour . According to critics, the reform led to an increase in employment but not to an increase in social mobility. In the words of the economist Paul Samuelson, many other former welfare recipients also turn out to be “not employable and worse off without continuous welfare”. Above all, they include poorly educated, low-wage workers without work experience, social problem cases, the mentally handicapped, drug addicts. For others, however, the situation has improved.

Proponents of the reforms point out that TANF and the Family Cap have reduced the number of poor children. Critics pointed out early on that this decrease in child poverty was mainly due to an increase in abortions and not to the fact that parents were enabled to care for their children. Between 1992 and 1996 alone, welfare recipients in New Jersey gave birth to 1,4057 fewer children than would statistically have been expected if the birth rate remained the same, and 1,429 more abortions than expected.

In the USA, criticism of the median-based calculation is directed against the fact that the method does not take into account state benefits and that the actual income must therefore be set higher. On the other hand, it is criticized that actual expenses, for example expenses for childcare and medical expenses, are not sufficiently taken into account; In particular, the calculation method is based on the assumption that mothers stayed at home and therefore no childcare costs were incurred for families. Economist Trudy Renwick ( Fiscal Policy Institute ) worked with Barbara Bergmann to develop a method for calculating the poverty rate that was supposed to remedy these shortcomings. It was based on an individual shopping basket that was as realistic as possible, based on the standards set by the government, it differentiated according to occupation or non-occupation of the parents, age of the children and place of residence and it took into account the taxes to be paid as expenditure and all by the public sector, Assistance given by the employer or by relatives as income. This method resulted in a significantly higher poverty rate than the official calculation method, which is based on 50% of the median, and this especially for single parents who work all year round.

Poland

At the end of 2003, 12% of Poles lived in poverty. Large families are particularly affected. Of these, 42% live in poverty. Poverty is primarily a problem for the rural population and the population in the small towns of northern Poland; the urban population is more affluent. The north of Poland is poorer than the south.

Poverty in Poland goes hand in hand with poor nutrition for families: "To save money, meals are prepared of inferior quality - milk, pasta, pancakes, potatoes, cabbage, bread with lard." Tarkowska was able to observe that the needs of children were met are mostly in the foreground in families, but they are often undernourished and susceptible to infections. In the event of illness, families are often unable to pay for the medication. The living conditions are characterized by a lack of space. This is increased in winter because poor families only use parts of the apartment in winter to save heating costs. To save water costs, poor families bathe only once a week and several children are washed in the same water. Two, three or more people sleep in one bed. In Tarkowska's investigations, a woman shared a bed with four of her youngest children.

Tarkowska noted that the children of poor families in Poland have practically no childhood as they have to take on adult responsibilities from an early age. In particular, both sons and daughters of many Polish farmers have in many cases been forced to help out on the farm since early childhood. This does not always have to affect school performance, as many children only work on Saturdays. However, in some families it happens that the children have to work during school hours. 16% of farmer's children miss at least one day of school a week because they have to work. In contrast to Saturday work, this affects school performance.

Children from poor Polish families often end their school career after primary school, but at the latest after vocational school. They rarely get a higher education or even start studying. This is due on the one hand to material and on the other hand to cultural reasons, because in the Polish poor environment early entry into working life and early family formation are highly regarded. Education, on the other hand, is viewed less highly.

Women

In Poland, girls are often forced to look after their younger siblings while their parents work. Many people miss school because of this. In adulthood, the eldest daughter often cannot build a life of her own, but has to continue to help the family. A farmer's daughter who gave up her vocational training to help her family describes it this way: “I came back here, although I regret it because I was successful there. But I came back because mom wrote me that I had a new sister […] She wrote such a nice letter, so I had pity on her. As a daughter I obviously had to help her. "

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

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