Monday, September 24, 2012

An Economic Miracle?

A new report by Germany’s Labour Ministry has revealed that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.

10% of the population owns 53% of the total wealth, while around 50% possess just 1%

“Hourly wages that are no longer sufficient - even if someone is working full time - to feed a one-person household,"
the ministry warned. The proportion of people working for low wages in Germany is on the increase in what appears to be a long-term trend. The bottom 40 percent of full-time employees are earning less after wages were adjusted for inflation. In 2010, the ratio of Germans working in the low-wage sector stood at 20.6 percent, compared with the 18.7 percent in 2006.

Critics argue that the expansion of the low-paid job opportunities, called "mini jobs,” have put the economic pressures on the poorest in society. The German "economic miracle" leaves the poorest behind. “Even if you’ve paid into the system for 35, 40 or 45 years and even if you have a qualified job and a regular salary, you may still not receive a pension above the poverty line,” Labour Minister Ursula Von der Leyen told parliament last week. Economic experts at the Hans Boeckler Foundation think tank calculate that an employee earning around 2,000 euros ($2,600) per month will need to work 43.5 years to receive the minimum monthly pension of 700 euros in Germany. Experts warned a situation could develop similar to that in the United States, where pensioners often have to work to make ends meet. More than 761,000 German pensioners are already having to work to complement their pensions, with 118,000 of those aged 75 or over. And that trend is rising.

No comments: