Germany: More than 3 million pensioners at risk of poverty

Sahra Wagenknecht, the leader of the new left-wing BSW party named after her, lamented a "dramatic increase in old-age poverty" in an interview with the German dpa news agency published on Saturday. 

Eurostat data on pensioners at risk of poverty

The BSW had issued a formal request for information to the European Union's statistical agency Eurostat, which found that around 3.2 million people aged 65 or over in Germany were at risk of poverty. 

Eurostat's data suggests roughly one in six pensioners in the country fall into the category.

The figure had risen slightly in 2023, to 3.245 million, from 3.157 million the previous year. But in 2021, amid the inflationary pressure following the COVID pandemic, it had stood at 3.3 million. 

Back in 2013, only 2.4 million were at risk of poverty, with Eurostat's definition of this being if a pensioner's total income, including benefits, is less than 60% of the national median income. 

However, demographic changes in Germany and its aging population play a significant role in this increase, with the pensioner population increasing by more than 50% since 1991, from 12 million to 18.7 million by 2022. 

Common campaign issue for BSW, as snap vote looms

"Pensioner poverty even affects the middle class in the meantime," Wagenknecht, who formally split from the socialist Left Party and formed the new party in January, told dpa on Saturday. 

She claimed that neither Chancellor Olaf Scholz, also a former finance minister, nor his CDU challenger Friedrich Merz had an answer to the issue. 

With a view to snap elections in February in Germany, Wagenknecht said good pensions were a "focal point" for her BSW. 

Her party frequently addresses such issues. Last month, it requested data from the German statistical office on the number of individuals aged 65 and over who required welfare payments to supplement their pensions in Germany.

Almost 730,000 people did so in the second quarter of 2024, Destatis found, again with a fairly sharp rise over the last 10 or so years amid the expanding pensioner population.  

New party with funding gap 

Wagenknecht also appeared in the publications of Germany's RND newspaper group on Saturday, again arguing for action to reduce living costs. 

In this case, she was calling for more legislation in the Bundestag before February's elections, but this time not from the remaining minority government but rather led by the opposition. 

She said there would be a parliamentary majority to repeal contentious new laws on heating prices implemented earlier in the government's term. 

She called the heating legislation one of the "most illogical and in the long term expensive for citizens" of the past three years. 

"It doesn't protect the climate, but rather stands for the imposition of the state, wanting to govern right the way into our citizens' heating cellars," she told the newspapers. 

Wagenknecht and the BSW are also  strapped for cash themselves, particularly now that the election date has been brought forward. 

While the new party would in theory now qualify for state campaign funding assistance for the next federal elections, having secured representation in the European Parliament and some state parliaments since its formation in January, party officials say the funds won't practically be available until 2025 and will therefore not flow in time.

Party treasurer Ralph Suikat said on Friday that the BSW was seeking either donations from supporters, which it says it would repay in 2025, or if necessary more formal loans. Wagenknecht also said the campaign financing issue was posing "certain challenges." 

msh/lo (dpa, AFP, epd)

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