In Germany, approximately 17.6 million people, or 20.9% of the population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion in 2024, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) based on the first results of the income and living conditions survey (EU-SILC) released on Wednesday.
This represents a slight decrease from the previous year. In 2023, Destatis reported that around 17.9 million people, or 21.3% of the population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The percentage has remained largely unchanged in recent years, with 21.0% in 2021 and 21.1% in 2022.
A person is considered at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the European Union (EU) if at least one of the following three conditions applies: their income is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, their household is affected by significant material and social deprivation, or they live in a household with very low labor market participation. The percentage of people in each of these life situations is calculated for each.
In 2024, 15.5% of the population, or around 13.1 million people, in Germany were at risk of poverty, according to Destatis. In 2023, the at-risk-of-poverty rate was still 14.4% (12.1 million people).
According to the EU-SILC definition, a person is at risk of poverty if they have less than 60% of the median equivalent income of the total population. In 2024, this threshold for a single person in Germany, net of taxes and social insurance, was €1,378 per month (2023: €1,314); for households with two adults and two children under 14, it was €2,893 per month (2023: €2,759). To fully capture income, the year’s income is inquired about, so the questions about income refer to the previous year of the survey, in this case, the year 2023.
6.0% of the population, or around 5.0 million people in Germany, were, according to the federal office, in 2024 affected by significant material and social deprivation (2023: 6.9%, 5.8 million people). This means that their living conditions were significantly restricted due to a lack of financial means. The affected individuals, for example, were not able to pay their bills on time for rent, mortgages, or utility services, finance a one-week vacation, replace worn-out furniture, or meet with friends or family once a month to have a drink or eat together.
9.8% of the population under 65, or around 6.2 million people in Germany, lived in 2024 in a household with very low labor market participation, according to Destatis (2023: 9.9%, 6.3 million people). This means that the household members were very little or not at all integrated into the labor market.
According to the EU-SILC definition, this situation occurs when the labor market participation of the working-age household members, aged 18 to 64, in the previous year of the survey was less than 20%. This was the case, for example, when in a household with two people in this age group one person did not work at all and the other was only employed for four out of 12 months.