A WSI-report states that 20% of the citizens living in the larger German cities can be classified as poor. The criterion for this classification is an income below 60% of the median net income (€ 848 for a single person per month). Whilst the percentage is 15.1% for the whole population, the percentage in the cities increased from 17.5% in 2005 to 19.6% in 2011. Another important shift is the incidence of poor in East and West. In East-German cities the situation slightly improves. In some West-German cities, notably Dortmund and Duisburg, there is a dramatic increase of poverty. As the percentage of people living from social benefits is decreasing, this might indicate that an important part of the population with an income below the median can be classified as ‘working poor’. An English version of the report is forthcoming.
German: http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/p_wsi_report_08_2012.pdf
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/wsi-studie-in-deutschlands-staedten-steigt ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.