Back around ten years ago....it was not that uncommon for German public TV to run a 3-minute report on West Virginia, Mississippi, or some urban decayed neighborhood in the US.....to the serious troubles with poverty in the US.
Well....times have changed, and you tend to sit and observe the creation, maintenance, and continuation of poverty in Germany today.
Back three years ago, poverty was noted to be around 15-percent of the general population (82-million). In Berlin City alone....it's estimated in 2017 to be around 22.4-percent of the city population in the landscape of poverty.
What really happened over the past two decades to create this large problem?
First, some people go back 2003, when the government created a new jobs strategy, and the result of this was a direct path to mini-jobs (meaning part-time situations), and low-income jobs (the ones that never seem to rise, and it's just above the amount of minimum wage. I always to think of it as an exercise to create a 'burger-flipper' generation. Wages never went up.....people were sitting there with no real craft or skills, so they got the only jobs open.....burger-flipper occupations with no wage growth.
Second, back around a decade ago....you started to see a trend where people got laid off around age thirty to fifty (with no craft or skill certificate), and the Jobs-Center was stuck with a long-term unemployed guy. Their attitudes went to hell....they couldn't rate any real help, so they got used to the welfare system (Hartz IV). Why go back and waste time with the Job-Center.....just accept the minimum pay level they shovel out?
Third, this odd factor played into this trend.....kids sat there in these families and got bad attitudes as well. There's a foundation report from the end of 2017, which talks of the new number of German kids in poverty status.....21-percent of German kids exist in poverty today. There's no indication that they are leaving that status.
Fourth, the arrival of the migrants. Basically, the industrial and business sector is happy about the arrival of immigrants....mostly because they will take up jobs....even low-paying jobs (when the Hartz IV crowd won't). Migrants this week....are reported to be taking one of each two open jobs that come up via the Job-Center environment.
It's bad enough that people are talking about a massive change....dumping welfare and creating 'basic pay'....which would be some big step up....probably a 50-percent upgrade on pay. Course, it doesn't really change attitudes or get these folks jobs, but it gives a short reprieve from poverty. Who will pay for the taxes required? Don't ask....the political folks don't want to open this chat in a public way about paying for the increase.
It's an odd thing. Here's a country with 4.5-percent unemployment.....lots of educational opportunities.....all this social help....working day and night to keep the poverty trend in place. It's like they really don't want to change the path or flip this situation into a improved state.
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