Holiday trips are not always possible
One in five people don’t have the money for a week’s vacation
March 31, 2024, 8:34 a.m
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Around Easter, many people go on vacation for a few days. But more than 20 percent of people in Germany cannot afford this, as figures from the Federal Statistical Office show.
Many are currently enjoying the Easter holiday – but according to data from the EU statistics agency Eurostat, 22.6 percent of people in Germany do not have the money for even a one-week holiday trip a year. The proportion is highest for single people with children at 43.2 percent. But even among families with two adults and three or more children (31.3 percent), an above-average number cannot afford a one-week vacation. Sahra Wagenknecht, member of the Bundestag, asked the Federal Statistical Office for the numbers.
The proportion of the population for whom a one-week vacation is too expensive grew by 0.4 percentage points from 2022 to 2023. In general, single people (30.4 percent) are more likely than couples (16.8 percent) to have too little money for a break, as the figures show. These values have also increased slightly.
Overall, this also applies to households without children who cannot afford a holiday trip: the proportion grew from 21.1 to 22.0 percent. For households with children, the proportion fell slightly from 23.7 to 23.5 percent, but was still above average.
Inflation is making itself felt
The development is shameful, commented Wagenknecht. “Almost one in four people can’t even recover for a week.” The chairwoman of the new Alliance party, Sahra Wagenknecht, saw this as an “indicator of our country’s descent under the traffic lights.” The federal government has made millions of citizens poorer. “We need a turnaround in economic and social policy in Germany,” demanded Wagenknecht.
Eurostat data shows that the proportion of the population with too little money for a one-week holiday has fluctuated at around a fifth in recent years. In 2020 it was 22.4 percent, in 2021 it was 19.9 percent, the following year it was 22.2 and last year it was 22.6 percent. The high inflation rate after the Russian attack on Ukraine may have played a role, among other things.