We have more useless figures, originally from German tabloid Bild, refashioned by Die Welt.
They report that the number of Eastern European recipients of the basic social benefits regime Hartz-IV has increased by almost 50% in the year October 2012 to October 2013.
Once past the scary headline, you get a graph calling out Rumanians and Bulgarians in relation to "all foreigners" and "population total".
The Rumanians come in at 7.5%. That is a mere 0.1% above the "population total". Not much to report here.
The numbers for Bulgarians have seen a substantial increase from somewhere over 10% (the graph omits the exact number) to 14.8%.
Which is still below the "all foreigners" value of 16.8%.
The article basically says Bulgarians and Rumanians are still under the "all foreigners" percentage.
But you cannot get a lot of attention saying that, can you?
And the total number of immigrants from these two countries is....not given in the article.
The biggest number we find is 41 999 as the number of people from these two countries collecting Hartz-IV at the end of October 2013.
Given that the number of people holding a job in Germany at that time was about 41 million, the dire warnings of huge numbers of immigrants from Bulgaria and Rumania swamping the German social safety net have been a bit overblown.
And those 42 000 also include people working a "450 euro a month mini job" and receiving some Hartz-IV to bring them up to the minimum for survival.
Our favorite English bard could do a contemporary "Much ado about nothing" on the subject.
One more thing:
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Should we give Kudos to Die Welt for closing the reader comment section after a mere two unfriendly - towards the foreigners, of course - article?
Or should we be less charitable to Die Welt? After all, reporting like this may well contribute to the notion they are coming for our money.
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