No one in their right mind would claim that there is a generally agreed definition of what being poor means. For an overview on "Extreme Poverty", using World Bank data, the very cool website "Our World in Data", has great charts that show a decline in "extreme poverty". Check them out.
The annual neoliberal blitz we are talking about has nothing to do with this. It comes as a reflexive knee jerk when German charities publish their annual report on looming poverty in Germany.
All German media outlets cover the report to different degrees of detail. A fairly good overview of the key indicators can be found in this Zeit article.
To save you the effort, here is the gist of the new report: In 2015, some 15.7% of Germans, which translates into 12.9 million people, made less than 60% of the median income. The 60% is the report's criterion for "threatened by poverty". For a single adult, that's 942 Euros a month, for a family with two children under 14, it is 1978 Euros.
The overall result: the number of Germans threatened by poverty is at another record high.
There are huge differences for different segments of the population, with older unemployed people and single parents among the best known precarious groups.
The report does a very good job of explaining how the numbers came about, what went into them and what didn't. Poverty, or looming poverty, is an emotional subject at any time, but even more so in an election year that recently saw the new Social Democrat candidate for chancellor call for easing the tight social benefits regime instituted in the early 2000s. Known as Agenda 2010, or Hartz IV for its centerpiece, it is famous for grumpy jobcenter personnel, sanctions (cuts) for the most minute deviation from the rules.
But the exact findings of the report really don't matter to its critics.
While critics mostly dismiss the figure of 932 Euros as too high in comparison with other countries in their preferred apples and oranges approach, they usually don't go as far as one professor quoted in "centrist" Frankfurter Allgemeine, who called the report "nonsense and dumb".
Nobody seriously working on the subject was taking the official numbers seriously, the gentleman claimed. The charities had no interest in the real picture, because, if they had, "they would find that poverty has been declining down for years".
Note the unspecific "for years". Shouldn't a scientist be more focused if he levels a Trumpian "nonsense and dumb" attack?
So, what does the prof see as a serious approach? You'd have to determine needs, baskets of goods, and keep those up to date, he says. That's a lot of effort, which is why nobody is doing it in the first place.
Wait, did a scientist call the report nonsense and claim a few sentences down that nobody (which means himself included) does the work required to figure it out?
So, he knows that poverty has been declining but cannot back it up?
Yep.
On top of this, his claim that nobody determines needs and makes baskets of goods and services, is simply wrong.
The bare bones Hartz IV means tested benefits are assessed through a complex system of formulas and evaluation, only to come out at 409 Euros for an adult in 2017 (a hike of 5 Euros from the year before). Add to this the basic cost of rent, and lo and behold you end up pretty close to the charities' report.
Would it help to know that Germany's constitutional court has found these benefits to be too low?
What else does this year's neoliberal attack include, let's see.
Oh, students.
Yes, another expert says hundreds of thousands of students, out of the total of about 2.8 million, fall into the "controversial category of poverty", yet, students were "particularly politically active in society, rightly considering themselves the future elite".
That is a rather nefarious little statement.
Is he implying that you can be poor and politically active at the same time? Why would you want to say that, other than to say poverty isn't bad, you can have fun and be engaged?
Note he said "students" were active, not the precarious hundreds of thousands, just all students. He has no data on the behavior of the precarious ones. Maybe the only active ones are those without money trouble?
Or, more plausible, having very little money for a few years as a student and decent job prospects is very different from being, say, in your fifties, your physical health somewhat damaged from repetitive work, your mental health impacted by stress, and your prospects of being a future member of the elite long dead?
What will next year's report bring?
If inflation is a guide, more of the same. Just days ago, the official inflation figures for 2016 came out with 2.2%, wiping out the average wage increase of about 2.1%. And the 1.2% increase in benefits? Gone before the first bank transfer.
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