Status: 30.10.2022 8:54 am
#ichbinarmutsaffected gives a voice to people who don’t have enough money to live on. For experts, it is a sign of how much the situation has worsened. But what can a hashtag do?
In spring 2022, Susanne Hansen is sitting in front of her computer and is afraid. Afraid that if she speaks publicly about her life – a life in poverty – it could have disadvantages for her family. Because she is ashamed and she knows the prejudices: the poor are lazy, have made themselves comfortable in the “social hammock”. But then she writes about her separation, her two sick children and how the family slipped into Hartz IV. Her story is one of hundreds of thousands shared on Twitter under the hashtag I am poverty-stricken.
Users report how they look enviously at filled plates in restaurants, how they have to sell beloved items due to lack of money, how they can no longer afford food at the end of the month and how they worry about the next electricity bill. Examples that show what it means to be poor in a rich country like Germany.
A research area of Holger Schoneville, junior professor for social education at the University of Hamburg. Together with students, he examines the tweets about poverty. They fit in well at a time when energy and food were becoming increasingly expensive: “We have a lot of statistics, for example on the income and living conditions of poor people. But now they give an insight into their subjective feelings. What does it mean to live with them every day ? We are very interested in that.”
The winter shoes must not break
In Hansen’s garden in the Hamburg area, the broccoli has to be harvested soon. “Even before the first frost,” emphasizes the 54-year-old. She tries to grow as much as possible herself. Fruit and vegetables from the supermarket are too expensive for them. She and her 15-year-old son live on 120 euros a week. The daughter doesn’t live with her at the moment. “Being poor means calculating all the time and afraid that something will break. For example my son’s shoes. He only has a pair of winter shoes and if they break, we have a problem.”
In Germany, people are considered to be at risk of poverty if they have less than 60 percent of the median income to live on. For a person living alone, this poverty line is around 1251 euros net per month. Almost 16 percent of the population was considered at risk of poverty last year. An increase: in 2000 it was 11.7 percent.
“We have an intensification of poverty and a consolidation. Those who live under the conditions of poverty come out less often,” says Holger Schoneville.
“Hidden and made small”
When Hansen became poor more than three years ago, she withdrew from society. “The process is very quick,” explains the author and journalist. She usually turned down invitations from friends and thought up flimsy illnesses. Because she doesn’t have the money to buy a present, for example. “I hid and made myself small because I couldn’t keep up.”
A self-confident person quickly turns into one full of doubts and fears. Then came the change with #ichbinarmutsaffected. The exchange with others made her realize: “I’m not alone,” says Hansen. “I was suddenly part of a group and had equal rights: I wasn’t among the others because I couldn’t afford anything, I was right in the middle.”
In society, the view of poverty is changing, says Schoneville: “A few years ago we still had a debate that poverty doesn’t really exist here. Today you could no longer say that the poor are lazy. We live in one Time when we have to acknowledge that poverty is socially created.”
Still prejudice
Take the corona pandemic as an example: hardly anyone would assume that laziness was the cause of anyone who had become poor as a result. Hansen is now also protesting on the streets. Because the digital stories should become a movement. But the influx is low – recently, for example, far fewer people came in Berlin than expected. A sign that #ichbinarmutsaffected is losing momentum?
No, Hansen thinks, it’s just the beginning and we’ll grow: “There’s still a lot of work that we have to do. Many people don’t take us seriously yet, but we’re being taken more seriously and we’re seen more – and that is really important.”
Because even if she can now deal with her poverty with self-confidence, she still encounters prejudices. And as before, people talk too often about and too rarely with the poor or people at risk of poverty. Society and the state should trust them more and communicate with them as equals.
And financial security is needed – Hartz IV and the planned citizen’s income are not enough to live on. But she won’t need that anymore, hopes Hansen. The hashtag I’m poor has given her new strength. She wants to start her own business as an author next spring and finally get out of poverty.