As Germany prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the country's leading labor organizations has concluded that people living in the former East Germany are still hounded by poverty much more than their compatriots in the west. Germans living in the areas of the country that once belonged to the former East Germany are twice as likely to face poverty, according to the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB), one of the country's leading labor unions.A soup kitchen in Berlin's Pankow district. In Wednesday's edition of the Leipziger Volkszeitung daily, DGB labor market expert Wilhelm Adamy estimated the differences between the former East and West Germanies in terms of the percentage of working-age individuals who are dependent upon benefits they receive under the controversial Hartz IV welfare program. For the former West Germany, Adamy put the figure at 7.4 percent; for the east, at 16.4 percent. Since reforms introduced by the government of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2005, anyone who loses their job in Germany is entitled to unemployment benefits paying a certain percentage of their former salary for between 12 and 18 months. If they have not found a new job by then, under the Hartz IV system, they are classified as long-term unemployed and receive €351 ($491) a month in government assistance as well as additional amounts for dependents and the cost of renting "suitable" housing.
As Germany prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the country's leading labor organizations has concluded that people living in the former East Germany are still hounded by poverty much more than their compatriots in the west.
Germans living in the areas of the country that once belonged to the former East Germany are twice as likely to face poverty, according to the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB), one of the country's leading labor unions.
A soup kitchen in Berlin's Pankow district. In Wednesday's edition of the Leipziger Volkszeitung daily, DGB labor market expert Wilhelm Adamy estimated the differences between the former East and West Germanies in terms of the percentage of working-age individuals who are dependent upon benefits they receive under the controversial Hartz IV welfare program. For the former West Germany, Adamy put the figure at 7.4 percent; for the east, at 16.4 percent.
Since reforms introduced by the government of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2005, anyone who loses their job in Germany is entitled to unemployment benefits paying a certain percentage of their former salary for between 12 and 18 months. If they have not found a new job by then, under the Hartz IV system, they are classified as long-term unemployed and receive €351 ($491) a month in government assistance as well as additional amounts for dependents and the cost of renting "suitable" housing.
