Although reunification in 1990 changed a lot for the Germans, one thing did not change. Society is still made up of rich and poor. The poor moreover make up a substantial group: 9.1 per cent of the German population lived below the poverty line of 50 per cent of average incomes in 1998. The rich are also a large group: 950,000 private housholds dispose of a net income of more than 1 million marks, according to the analyst W. Rügemer. The trade unions observed in 1998 that 10 per cent of German households controlled 50 per cent of total capital wealth, while 14 per cent of the population had no savings whatever.

On the historic date of Nov. 9th 1989 ( the date of the fall of the Berlin Wall) a German welfare association published the first national report on poverty (dealing only with the west). It was the outcome of two

necessary equipment. Very often the children are ill. Healthy eating is too expensive on social welfare, which is based on the price of canned cheap food. Eating out is unimaginable. There are many similar life situations: handicapped people, those suffering from chronic diseases, under attack from the current health reform in Germany or people unemployed for longer than a year. Their allowance is being cut back to the social welfare level. People with chronic disease have always been entitled to occupational disability pensions. These are also being reduced, without any compensation and the incapacity pension is being changed into a partial one. Even social welfare, the minimum safety net

Mrs Meier’s niece, Susi, has it no easier. She lives in the suburb of a big city in an anomymous tower block. For ten years she has been a single mother. The father of her two children pays nothing towards the family's maintenance. Certainly, she receives family allowance, the usual German social family services, as well as additional housing allowance to compensate her exorbitant urban rents, which are too high for most people earning a normal wage. But taken all together, it is still not enough to save her from dependence on social welfare. A third of single parent families are in this situation.

The shocking result was expressed in its title: “... what we have to be ashamed of in a rich country...” This report identified approximately 10 % of all west Germans as belonging to the poor.

Unemployed people, families with many children, single parents, migrants, but also the ‘working poor’ were the losers: 14 per cent of all children, 30 per cent of all single parent households, 20 per cent of all families with 3 or more children as well as 18 per cent of all migrants were forced into poverty.

in Germany, is in danger of being interferered with by politicians who are only con

Some topics in this essay:
Willi Brandt’s, East Germany’s, East Germans, Jens Schröter, Wall German, Sozialhilfeiniziativen BAG-SHIeV, social welfare, Federal Government, Germany Frankfurt, poor people, west east, single parent, 14 cent, west germans, federal government, cent german, social services, poverty germany,