As of: 09/21/2021 5:06 p.m.
Many of the socio-political goals of the outgoing government were not very ambitious or were completely missed, so the conclusion of the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband. The association assessed the decisions in the pandemic as positive.
The social division in society is not diminishing – this is the conclusion of the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband in its most recent annual report. “The socio-political balance of the outgoing federal government is extremely modest,” said association boss Rolf Rosenbrock.
Many of the government’s goals were not very ambitious or had been completely missed. For example, the federal government has set itself the goal of keeping the number of poor people below the EU average in the future. This was only partially achieved. In fact, the poverty rate remained high in 2019 at 15.9 percent. In addition, every fifth pensioner is now considered poor, and the risk of poverty among older people is increasing continuously.
Expensive living
The seventh annual report of Paritätischer also identifies the high burden of rents on poor households as a serious problem: almost half (48 percent) are overburdened by housing costs because they have to pay more than 40 percent of their income for it. Almost 18 percent of households would have to cope with overcrowded apartments.
It is true that the government has de facto achieved the goal of reducing the proportion of those who have to spend more than 40 percent of their income on housing to 13 percent by 2030. The value was 13.9 percent in 2019. But there are significant differences between people affected by poverty and those not affected by poverty, said Rosenbrock.
No equality between women and men achieved
In addition, the association criticized the fact that the goal of equality between women and men had been clearly missed, since women still earned less in comparison and this gap in the retirement age was even greater.
Although the general earnings gap between women and men is slowly falling, it is still 18 percent. In a direct comparison, women received six percent less wages than men for their work in the same or a comparable job.
Lots of low-wage jobs
While the government has achieved its goal of increasing the employment rate, there are still too many low-wage jobs. Six million people work in low-wage jobs. According to Paritätischen, wealth inequality has so far been underestimated. The report refers to more recent data, according to which the upper tenth of the population owns 64 percent of the wealth in Germany.
Rosenbrock also pointed out that precariously employed and poorer people had a higher risk of infection or a higher risk of serious illnesses in the Corona crisis. Reasons for this are the working, living and mobility conditions as well as previous illnesses or stress factors such as poverty that are more common in these groups.
Praise for decisions in the pandemic
Nevertheless, the Paritätische Verband praised the federal government for its far-reaching decisions in the corona pandemic: Rosenbrock rated the expansion of short-time work as positive in particular. The fact that some of the Hartz IV regulations were temporarily suspended was also rated positively. “This has contributed to at least mitigating the social consequences of the pandemic,” emphasized Rosenbrock.
But he criticized the political indifference to the needs of the recipients of the basic security. Despite the rise in food costs and the loss of support offers such as free school lunches and food spending by the food banks, there was no service that was tailored to their needs, apart from occasional one-off payments.
Demands on the future federal government
From the future federal government, the Paritätische Gesamtverband is demanding, among other things, higher Hartz IV rates, basic child benefits, social security reforms, effective rental price limits, a socially just climate policy and higher taxes for top earners, heirs, the wealthy and investors.