As many as never before
More and more pensioners receive basic security
07/16/2023 11:42 am
Inflation is taking its toll: More and more pensioners need help from the social welfare office. According to one report, 684,000 people are dependent on basic security in old age. “Every quarter, people the size of a district town are added to poverty in old age,” complains left-wing politician Bartsch.
In Germany, more and more people of retirement age are dependent on help from the social welfare office. This is reported by the newspapers of the Funke media group, citing previously unpublished data from the Federal Statistical Office.
According to this, at the end of the first quarter, 684,000 people received basic security in old age, more than ever before. Compared to December, this corresponded to an increase of around 25,000 people. Seen over the year, the number of cases even increased by around 90,000, which is an increase of 15 percent. Women are particularly often affected by poverty in old age: most recently, six out of ten recipients of basic security in old age were female.
In the first quarter of this year, a total of 1.22 million people in Germany received basic security benefits in old age and in the case of reduced earning capacity. In the first quarter of 2022 it was 1.13 million. These benefits are given to adults who cannot permanently secure their livelihood from their own income and assets.
According to the Federal Office in April, the reason for the significant increase is mainly the increasing number of beneficiaries from Ukraine: after 20,525 people in December 2021, there were 73,060 a year later. People who had to flee Ukraine because of the Russian war of aggression have been receiving the benefits since June 2022, before which they would have received asylum seeker benefits. The Federal Office explained that it was mainly women and older people.
Bartsch: “Numbers are alarming”
Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch warned of an increase in old-age poverty in view of the numbers: The chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Dietmar Bartsch, said to the Funke titles: “Every quarter, people the size of a district town are added to poverty in old age. The numbers are alarming and also a result of the devastating policies of recent years. Inflation and war are particularly driving the numbers.” In addition to refugees from the Ukraine, it is above all the pensioners in this country who can no longer pay the rising prices and are slipping into poverty in old age. The number of unreported cases is significantly higher, and many of those affected did not go to the social welfare office out of shame.
Bartsch added: “We need a consistent anti-inflation policy in Germany: price reductions and complete price controls, especially for food and energy. Pensions need a general overhaul: a one-time pension increase of ten percent to compensate for inflation instead of an inflation premium for ministers and state secretaries, a pension level of 53 percent and a minimum pension of 1,200 euros as a protective shield against poverty in old age.”