
What Does It Mean to Be Poor in Germany? - nkurz
http://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/a-1093371.html
======
zinssmeister
I read the german version of this article a few days ago and paired with my
own experience (I was born and raised in Germany and lived there until the age
of 25) I came to the conclusion that: a.) being poor in Germany is much much
better than being poor in most other countries (incl. the United states, where
I reside now) and b.) When you are poor in Germany you can drastically improve
your cash flow by not living in one of the expensive cities. Living out in the
country in a small village will enable you to stretch your welfare checks
compared to living in Munich, where most things and most people around you are
much more.

I also think Germany has a unique opportunity here to tackle the problem of
social mobility and could improve the way they deploy the welfare budget. For
example supporting a young family with many children before they face sliding
into "poor status", due to one parent staying home to take care of the family.
The article did a great job highlighting three interesting situations and
their challenges/opportunities.

~~~
x0x0
This may be a very American perspective, but I utterly fail at any sympathy
towards the parents that had two kids and were doing fine, then decided to
have two more and are whining that someone else didn't step up to pay for
them. I mean, it's not as if babies being up all night is a predictable part
of having a baby or anything. The mother whines that kids shouldn't be like a
mercedes, where you decide beforehand if you can afford it. But that's exactly
what kids are like. And if only there where some way (algebra) to know that
per-capita income would shrink with each child! Hell, you may even think the
country should pay for unlimited kids, but they couldn't be bothered to check
before having the 3rd and 4th child if Germany does or not. They are
irresponsible parents.

~~~
aminok
Studies show that the rate of single motherhood increases dramatically with
rises in welfare. It's no surprise to anyone whose eyes are open that people
are generally rational, and act to further their own interests.

It's morally abhorrent that it's accepted practice that people vote for
politicians that promise them money taxed from others. Social democracy is
simply authoritarianism.

~~~
taneq
Do these studies show what proportion of those single mothers would otherwise
be forced to endure some kind of abusive environment if welfare didn't enable
them to get out?

~~~
aminok
The studies show that women are far more likely to give birth while unmarried
when there are higher levels of welfare available, so this is not measuring
the incidence of women who already have children in a marriage and then get a
divorce.

Given abortion, adoption and not getting pregnant in the first place are
possibilities which a person has some control over, I don't think you can
argue that all of those single mothers would otherwise be giving birth to
children in abusive relationships if not for welfare.

Furthermore, welfare is funded through abusive tax laws, which throw those who
refuse to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade in
prison, where they are kept in small enclosures, and often suffer mental
illness and are subjected to physical and sexual abuse. There is nothing
compassionate about authoritarian income redistribution.

------
claudiug
we are living in a world where if you are unlucky to have money or a proper
job, people will see you as a lazy, cheap, dirty human.

I guess, maybe universal salaries, and free school, medicine will make our
societies engage in what is important in life. Be happy, engage with your
families and friends.

When I was young, I remember clear, days when I was starving, and so my
parents trying and fighting to provide some food. Now, I life my first 30
years of life, and realize that nothing change. We are working for money and
dreams that are fake.

In Berlin, capital, you see more people that are searching for food, empty
bottles, and are in hartz and people look at them as dead animals. In Berlin,
there are east european poor people, that sleep on the bridges, on parks. What
they are doing? Ask for money.

Been poor in Germany, I guess is better than in Bulgaria or Romania, but been
poor in any country, also ignorant make us damn idiots.

~~~
stcredzero
_I guess, maybe universal salaries, and free school, medicine will make our
societies engage in what is important in life. Be happy, engage with your
families and friends._

From what I have seen, this will also result in hordes of people with tons of
free time who have useless degrees who haven't been properly trained to think
and aren't armed with basic knowledge about how the world actually works. They
will then proceed to engage in social media to manipulate their democratic
governments to their advantage and to the detriment of their society's future
well being.

This has already been happening, but the amount and degree of free time such
people have will be increased dramatically, as will their impact on the
political system.

~~~
dvtv75
As opposed to what? Employers and business lobby groups presently manipulate
society and democratic governments for their own ends, to the detriment of
their society's future well being.

Besides which, "useless degrees" seems to be used in this context to mean
"Anything I feel doesn't have employment prospects." Those things are not the
same as each other.

~~~
stcredzero
_" useless degrees" seems to be used in this context to mean_

Means degrees that don't indicate you learned how to think and how the world
actually works. My distinction isn't by discipline. My distinction is by the
intellectual ability of the individual holding it.

------
theoneone
Try being poor in Greece: no chance for a proper job( people with Ph.D. and
degrees work in cafe shops),no welfare, no proper healthcare( public hospitals
are overcrowded and with no stuff) etc. I think more advanced eu countries are
poor-friendly and really help people with bad luck get to their feet.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Why are those PhDs working in cafes, rather than working in their field in the
UK, like many other Greeks?

~~~
theoneone
Because (imho): -You need some starting money to live outside your
country(beeing nearly poor can't get you an airplane ticket ) -Not everyone is
prepared to live in another country -They really DONT want to live in another
country just because previous govs did a shitty job. -living abroad is not
everyone's heart(and mood)

~~~
rahimnathwani
The first point is valid, but many people in Greece could borrow that starting
money from family.

Points 2, 3 and 4 are essentially the same: "don't want to live outside
Greece". I can understand that it's hard to decide to leave your home country
for better economic prospects, but many many people make this same decision
every year.

------
woodpanel
As it has already been noted by others: those 3 examples are atypical for
Germany. The authors could've asked the more typical poors about their
backstory (the white trash, immigrants, street kids, drunks and junkies). I
can only assume they wanted to portrait poors to which "middle class"-people
could relate.

Which at least for me touches interesting points:

1) I think that Germans do not relate to their typical poors - at least not as
much they'd like to think they do. To me this is connected to the welfare
system: It effectively does anything to prevent middle-class people from a
hard landing while doing up to nothing for the poorest to being able to
compete for better places on the social ladder.

This makes sense from a political game theory standpoint: The vast majority of
Germans aren't poor, at most they feel struggling. How can a democracy prevent
its own sovereign (the majority of voters) from polluting the countries
institutions for their own interests?

2) This "welfare focus" comes at the price of low social mobility: A welfare
system aimed at the majority of people is generating huge costs, which the
poorest also have to compensate for (ie harder to find employment, even harder
to self-employ).

3) This "focus" is also reflected by the political debates about welfare
reform: It's usually dominated by the concern for a soft landing rather than
upward mobility. The massive welfare reforms of Chancellor Schröder in the
late 1990 were thus mostly criticized by those groups fearing to become poor,
rather than by people advocating for the poor or the poors themselves. In
fact, for the majority of long-time jobless those reforms netted them more
cash and a simpler way to get it.

PS:

4) Being poor within a society is always bad, no matter how high the average
standard of living is. It's kind of sad to see those 3 example's compassion-
worthiness degraded just because they are "poor in Germany". (In fact: If I
was young I'd rather be poor in a country with a lower standard of living if
it hat a higher social mobility.)

~~~
tamana
What is "white trash" in Germany? In USA it refers to rural people who wealthy
urban people hate for looking poor.

~~~
hobofan
Pretty much the same thing, but not really confined to rural regions, but also
public housing in bigger cities.

I would say the typical signifiers would be the same with low education level,
teenage parents forced into a situation where the have to work low-end jobs.

------
Will_Do
Original Version:

[http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/armut-in-
deutschla...](http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/armut-in-deutschland-
was-heisst-schon-arm-a-1088823.html)

------
dang
Please don't post this sort of rant here. If you have a substantive point to
make, you're welcome to make it thoughtfully, but not to just vent rage. It
lowers the signal/noise ratio and invariably takes threads in a poorer
direction.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793276)
and marked it off-topic.

Edit: ok, since so many of you protested, I must have gotten this one wrong.
I've put that comment
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793372))
back where it was, and marked this comment (mine) off-topic instead.

~~~
9935c101ab17a66
Your characterization of the comment as a rage-filled vent/rant is patently
unfair and incredibly inappropriate. Is there some way to report a moderator?
I definitely think any administrative powers you have should be revoked if
this is how you respond to a valid thought that you clearly don't agree with.

~~~
nkurz
It mentions in the Guidelines
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html))
that sending email to hn@ycombinator.com is the best way to raise questions
about moderation. If you send polite email, you'll probably get a polite
response.

------
tptacek
From the article:

 _But at the beginning of the 1990s, his life came crashing down around him.
One of his main customers stopped paying. He fought for years to get the
unpaid money and restructured his debt to get seed capital for his new
business plan. He fought desperately -- and ultimately in vain. In 1997, he
was forced to capitulate. By that point, he had already been unable to work
for two years and was on welfare. He lost his family home in a foreclosure and
his pension and retirement insurance plan was seized. His landlord evicted
him. Manfred Huber was ruined._

How does bankruptcy law work in Germany? This kind of catastrophe is what BK
law is supposed to prevent.

~~~
pavlov
Personal bankruptcy didn't exist in Europe in the '90s (AFAIK it's still not
in the law in many EU countries).

Limited liability companies have the option of bankruptcy (by definition), but
as a business owner it will leave a black mark on your credit rating in most
countries... And typically in a small business, the bank required that company
loans were guaranteed by the business owner or close family anyway, so a
bankruptcy didn't really solve anything.

~~~
danbruc
To be precise, the personal bankruptcy law in Germany came into effect in
1999.

------
tacon
That was an oddly confusing segment about Huber. In the third to last
paragraph of the long story are we (finally) told that "He's chronically ill",
though I suppose one is supposed to decode his health issues from the earlier
"By that point, he had already been unable to work for two years and was on
welfare." What are the opportunities for independent IT contractors, as he
apparently was, in Germany today? Isn't there strong demand for IT skills in
Germany, for a salary that pays above welfare?

~~~
ido
Maybe today, but not 20 years ago. Remember that Germany was in a deep
economic recession in the 90s.

------
redsummer
Even more eye-opening are these articles from Linh Dinh, mainly dealing with
American poverty: [http://www.unz.com/author/linh-
dinh/](http://www.unz.com/author/linh-dinh/)

The latest is on an ex-programmer who has fallen into heroin addiction and
poverty. I suspect there are a lot more stories like this than you would
expect from reading articles on Hacker News.

~~~
CamperBob2
And yet, if I point out that passive voice isn't really a thing that should be
used to describe heroin addiction, _I 'm_ the bad guy.

------
throwawayhuber
> Today, someone else is picking up the tab. For one day, he's once again part
> of the beer garden and its culture. He even saved two euros that had been
> planned for groceries. As he departs, he pulls the two-euro coin out of his
> bag and places it on the plate in front of the bathroom attendant. She
> warmly thanks him. Huber smiles.

He plans to kill himself if he gets to the point where he has no good looking
shirt, but he gives away two euros to the bathroom attendant?

You can get a nice shirt for 40 euro. Why does he give away his money if he is
in dire need? It seems reckless.

------
stesch
From my workplace (in Germany) I can see the trash containers of a
supermarket. And from time to time I see a senior citizen getting some food
there.

------
cosmolev
Being an IT Engineer and paying enormous German social taxes Huber shoud have
earned a decent pension of about 70% of his salary.

Where am I wrong?

------
kaid
A welfare state, is a system defined and dictated by a huge monolithic
institution(a government). The welfare such institution provides, is not
without prices. You surrender many aspects of freedom, and the ability of
proper risk management. The hatred among different classes and political
groups grows more intense, there are less and less probabilities they would
collaborate. Each group has a feeling of being robbed by the opposing groups.

~~~
incompatible
Institutions such as governments are no fun to deal with, and I'm sure that's
especially true if you are dependent on them to survive. What would you
suggest as an alternative?

~~~
kaid
I'm no expert in giving solutions on situations this complex. There could be
various ways of doing autonomous communities. People should be able to
organize and manage communities based off their ideologies, instead of obeying
to a general enforcement. There's a larger chance, that autonomous communities
may have more economic and innovative ways of solving conflicts and doing
collaboration/cooperation between each other or within their own hierarchy.

------
dnautics
all three interveiwed were poor _and german_. What is it like to be poor and
"not german", say, poor and a turkish immigrant? Or a child of turkish
immigrants?

------
thr12331
Its funny that refugees get more money than German pensioners.

~~~
mh-cx
Getting downvoted should make you think. Maybe you suffer from a very common
illness that you can find very often nowadays in Germany: pointing fingers at
refugees and (ab)using them as scapegoats for whatever some think is wrong
with this country. Usually truth is the first victim in such cases.

~~~
chvid
I think he (m/f) expected to get a lot of downvotes and thus created a
separate account just for this.

Refugees are given housing under terms not accessable to regular citizens and
thus may be (in some cases) getting a total "deal" at higher cost than a
regular citizen.

But what is the alternative to this? Collecting refugees in big camps
worsening social problems and problems with lack of integration.

~~~
DasIch
Refugees get housing not accessible to regular citizens like a bed in a tent,
gymnasium or another large building you need to share with a huge number of
people in which you don't have any private space.

Regular citizens will get their rent payed for by the government and
subsidized housing, if they require welfare.

You've got to be mental or completely incompetent at identifying and
comprehending trustworthy news sources to believe refugees are somehow better
of than citizens or even immigrants.

~~~
wprapido
refugees were given decent housing in germany before. now they are housed
collectively in pretty inhumane conditions

~~~
DasIch
They were and the newer arrivals will of course given proper housing. They're
still not in any way better off financially than German citizens though.
That's just right wing propaganda.

~~~
wprapido
spot on

------
jecjec
Another thinkfluencing-piece about why it is nice to live in white countries
without explaining why it is nice to live in white countries (hint: it's the
people).

------
known
One more reason to support
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_around_the_world)

