P OVERTY is in the news again.
Six million people here are living below the poverty line and the figure will certainly rise in the near future.
According to the definition of the European Community Council of Ministers in 1975, the poor are individuals and families whose income is so low that they are excluded from the way of life which is seen to be the acceptable minimum".
This minimum is generally considered to be around 50% of the average income. According to this criterion, poverty stood at 7% in 1983 and 10% seven years later, affecting six million people in the former Federal Republic (West Germany).
The essential reason for the growing impoverishment is mass unemployment and the inadequate social security payments for those without work. In 1980 there were fewer than 100,000 households whose primary reason for receiving social security benefits was unemployment; in 1989 this had risen to 479,000.
The most striking demonstration of the growth in poverty is the sharp rise in the number of those receiving social security. At 3.35 million - two million of them women - this has reached a historic high point.
The real figure is much higher since, according to a survey by the Ministry for Youth, Family and Health, only half of those entitled to social security actually claim it, whether for lack of information, shame, fear of social exposure or because they want to avoid being held responsible for paying for children or old people.
According to Federal social security law, social security ought to enable the recipient to a "dignified life". It is a so-called social obligation that is only paid if the recipient has no other source of income. The major item of social security is the shopping basket. The rules concerning the shopping basket allow for:
• 47 grams of meat a day, or 31.8 kilos a year, which is a third of the average meat
• 40 grams of sausage and 21 grams of cheese a day;
• a bus journey every ten days;
• every ten days a glass of beer;
• one lightbulb a year.
These are shocking figures and their meaning for the claimants is terrible. This shopping basket is simply the muzzle to stop the poor from expressing their needs.
Claimants are recruited to do "socially useful" work without wage payments. They receive between two and five marks an hour — as so-called compensation for additional expenditure. Such forced labour schemes mainly take place in the public sector. If such work is refused, benefit can be reduced or cut off.
There are no social security statistics for
Poverty in Germany
WEST Germany is universally known as one of the richest countries of the world, its social security system
GERMANY for women and unemployment insurance 1,352 DM for men and 508 for women. These figures have a striking consequence: retired women are the biggest single group among the poor.
Low pensions are the most important the envy of many. However, even here, the imperatives of competition have led to a sharp rise in that essential feature of capitalist society: poverty. MARC FISCHER East Germany. The German Union for Public and Social Welfare estimates that that in 1992 "well over 100,000 applications will be made". At the moment most East Germans who have lost their jobs are getting unemployment pay. However, if after a year they fall into the lower category of unemployment benefit recipients, they will also be claiming for social security. Thus in the near future, the circle of welfare claimants in East Germany is set
It is already more or less common knowledge that to have work does not mean to have enough to live on. For example, a woman shopworker in Nordrhein-Westfalen gets a gross wage of 1550 DM a month. In Bavaria, the starting wage for a chambermaid is 1312 DM. Thus poverty is also found amongst those in work.
If we take the above-cited European Community definition, we can paint the following picture:
a) A big majority of women workers in industry and commerce earn less than half the wage threshold. This amounts to about two million people.
b) Women white collar workers are in a somewhat better situation. Here some 20% of women employed in commercial and financial institutions fall beneath the threc) Men, and above all workers, are also affected if they work in the consumer goods sector and in the food industry.
Increase in part-time jobs
But this is only for those in full-time employment. In the course of the development of chronic mass unemployment, working contracts have perceptibly changed. While the total number of full time workers decreased by 150,000 between 1980 and 1989, the number of part-time jobs rose by over 450,000 in the same period.
It is generally the case that normal contracts - meaning permanent jobs with full social cover - are now much less common, while insecure forms of employment have spread.
Among the "abnormal" forms of work are, apart from part-time work, short-term contracts, (including various "work creation" schemes), out-contracting (both legal and illegal), home work and pseudo-selfemployment. It is estimated that some 25% of jobs now fall into this category.
The employers' hiring practices have now developed to the point where every second new job contract is not permanent. This affects especially women, apprentices and the less skilled. This leads to a division of the workforce between a growing army of marginal workers, with insecure and lower paid contracts and a decreasing number of core workers.
Currently, women's average wages are some 25% below those of men. In fact only a small proportion of women workers earn enough to be independent.
And while the situation of the employed woman is bad enough, unemployment -which disproportionately affects women - usually means a descent below the
The majority of women in receipt of unemployment benefit get less than 1000 DMs a month; 85% of them are eligible for social security. This is the result of the officially enshrined wage discrimination which means that women receive significantly lower benefits than men.
But this is not all. Only 56% of women meet the conditions of the unemployment bureau, compared to 75% of men. The other big group of women in the Federal republic who live below the poverty line are those bringing up children alone.
It is almost exclusively women who find themselves in this situation and even those with a job usually have a miserable time. While on average the income of fathers with responsibility for children is about the same as that for a standard family, the income of mothers in this situation
In order to arrive at the average net pension, the authorities calculate on the basis of an "average assured person" who has worked for between 40 and 45 years. However this hides the real situation.
In fact male workers have an average of 35.7 working years behind them when they retire and women a mere 22.6. In the white collar sector the figures are 37.3 and 27 years. This means that average white collar pensions are 1,885 DM for men and 855 reason - even more than unemployment — for the rising number of social security claimants. Indeed, some 60% of the total social security bill goes to pensioners.
Rising homelessness
Growing poverty and sharpening social problems are also reflected in the dramatic housing shortage and rising homelessness. The number of homeless has, according to one estimate, reached the level of one million. This embraces four main groups:
1) Those actually on the streets, who do not have any roof of their own - some
2) Those threatened with losing their home in the immediate future, that is, who confront eviction for one reason or another in the short term - about 100,000;
3) Those potentially threatened with losing their home, that is with finding themselves in category 2 in the foreseeable future (200,000 people);
4) Those who have grossly insufficient living space, about 700,000 people.
Groups two and three overlap to a large extent with group four, which is how we arrive at the figure of a million.
The housing crisis is condemning ever more people who were previously socially integrated to marginalization. People without a fixed abode are non-people. If you don't have a home, you can't find work and if you don't work you can't find a home. This vicious circle is sucking in more and more people. Every day some 150 people become homeless, falling into
Poverty does not only mean a lack of material goods. It also means a loss of control over one's independence. The authorities rule your life with all manner of regulations, controls and intrusions.
Above all, after a prolonged period on social security, poverty becomes an all-embracing experience. To have much less than others means reduced access to social life, it means being isolated and pushed back on oneself. For many to go down to the social security office is equivalent to passing into the shadows of a society which still seems to give everyone a chan-
Fear of failure and social relegation is a part of poverty. This fear makes you ready to take any job and live in any kind of hole. And that is why poverty is there. * • This article first appeared in the June 1992 issue of Avanti, published by the Revolutionary Socialist Group (GRS), sympathizers of the Fourth Internatio. 25 June 22, 1992• # 231 International Viewpoint
The eleven days of
International Viewpoint # 231 • June 22, 1992 prises and offices to shut down.
Wulf-Mathies answered the government's demagogic arguments firmly, with counter-arguments that expressed the feelings of the great majority of her members and of the population as a whole.
She clearly understood that a public