Is the grass always greener?

More than three million Germans can barely make ends meet despite being in work, according to a German newspaper. Growing numbers of struggling workers are cutting back on heating and food, an increase of 25 percent in five years.

538,000 low-wage workers were eating a full meal only every second day in an effort to save money on food. About 417,000 were going without adequate heating and almost 380,000 people could not afford to pay their rent on time. Every second low wage worker, some 1.5 million Germans, would not be able to pay for a one-week holiday per year outside their own four walls. About 600,000 workers were forgoing having their own car because they could not afford it.

"The number of workers who earn scarcely or marginally more than the government unemployment benefits (Hartz IV) is alarmingly high," the president of the social association VdK (VdK Sozialverband) Ulrike Mascher said