The city council prefers to raise income limits that would otherwise not have taken place until the end of the year. Anyone who earns less than 1,540 euros as a single person is now considered at risk of poverty.
More low-income households than before can already receive financial support from September 1st. At the request of the SPD/Volt and Greens/Rosa Liste parliamentary groups, the city prefers to increase the income limits for voluntary services, which would otherwise not have taken place until the end of the year. As has now been decided by the city council’s holiday senate, the income limit based on the risk of poverty threshold will rise from 1,350 euros for a single person to 1,540 euros. A household with two adults and two children under the age of 14 is considered to be at risk of poverty with an income of less than 3230 euros net (previously: 2835 euros).
Those who have less monthly income can not only get the Munich Pass, which offers a range of benefits or discounts for swimming pools and museums or enables the purchase of the Isarcard S social ticket for local public transport. There are also many other voluntary benefits, such as the municipal electricity cost subsidy, the subsidy for the purchase of a laptop for senior citizens or the social lunch table in the old people’s and service centers.
When it comes to citizen and housing benefit, the federal government is in demand
According to the social department, the at-risk-of-poverty rate determined by a population survey in 2021 fell to 17 percent; In 2016 it was 0.4 percentage points higher. Based on the population figures for June 2022, there are roughly the same number of people at risk of poverty as in 2016, namely 269,000.
The adjustment of the income limits is “urgently necessary in view of the rising cost of living and the high inflation”, emphasized social officer Dorothee Schiwy (SPD). Mayor Dieter Reiter appealed to the federal government to take into account the development of the cost of living in the case of citizens’ and housing allowances.