12

Number of European working poor doubles in a decade

by Elisabeth Zimmermann , 12 July 2017, WSWS

More and more people in work in Europe are being forced into poverty. This is demonstrated by a new study by the Hans Böckler Foundation which was made public last Thursday.  The study, titled “Activation policies and poverty,” notes that a growing proportion of the population of Europe live in poverty, although they are working.
The researchers from the Economic and Social Sciences Institute (WSI) of the Böckler Foundation examined the effects of labor market and social policy measures in 18 EU countries from 2004 to 2014. All of the measures were aimed at forcing unemployed people into low-wage labor.
According to their research, an average of about 10 percent of the workforce aged between 18 and 64 in the countries studied were “working poor.” This means they earn less than 60 percent of the average income in their country. The proportion of working poor was highest in Romania at 18.6 percent, followed by Greece, 13.4 percent, and Spain, 13.2 percent.
In Germany, the number of working poor doubled from almost 1.9 million, or 4.8 percent, in 2004 to almost 4.1 million, or 9.6 percent, in 2014. The increase is even higher in absolute figures, because the total number of employed in Germany increased during this period from 39.3 million to 42.6 million. In Germany in 2014, a single person with less than €986 net per month was considered poor. For a household with two adults and two children under 14 years, the threshold was €2,072.
“In most countries, poverty for those in work had already begun to increase before the crisis in the euro area,” the study states.  In the wake of the crisis, however, the situation in many countries worsened. “The measures taken to combat high unemployment have seen a further deregulation of the labor markets and a reduction in social benefits.”
The social counterrevolution in Europe finds its sharpest expression in Greece under the Syriza government.  High levels of unemployment due to the destruction of regular paying jobs is combined with savage cuts to unemployment benefits and pensions. Due to the already existing level of social decline, however, the statistical increase in the numbers of working poor in Greece is relatively low.
The example of Germany, where the number of those employed increased was “particularly remarkable,” the Böckler report concludes. “Evidently the link between employment growth and poverty is more complicated than commonly assumed.” This is a deliberately vague understatement of the social counterrevolution that has taken place in the past two decades.
The increase in precarious, temporary, low-paid, part-time employment for millions is an international phenomenon implemented by the ruling elites.
“The positive development in the German labor market is to a large extent due to an increase in atypical employment, especially part-time, often in the service and low-wage sector,” the study notes. The growth of the low-wage sector has been accelerated by extensive deregulation of the labor market, the reduction of benefits and increased pressure on workers to take any form of work. This increased pressure on the unemployed forces them to find a job as quickly as possible.
The trade unions in all countries played a major role in this development. They rushed to the side of capitalism in the crisis of 2008/2009, and helped transfer benefits for workers won over the course of decades into fresh reserves for bankrupt banks and their respective governments. The Böckler Foundation is the official think tank of the German trade union movement (DGB), and this explains the diplomatic tact of the WSI researchers in their report, although their statistics on poverty among workers are an indictment of the system.
The explosive growth of the low-wage sector in Germany was inaugurated in 2005 by the Hartz IV anti-social laws and Agenda 2010 program introduced by the SPD-Green coalition government led by Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer.  In 2004 the trade unions actively opposed those seeking to protest against the Hartz IV laws. The priority for unions was to enforce the new measures.
The concrete effects of the increasingly severe and far-reaching sanctions used by job centers is clear in the city of Duisburg, situated in the former industrial hub (Ruhr area) of Germany.  With a population of almost half a million inhabitants, 77,000 people in Duisburg are dependent on measly Hartz IV benefits.  The number of those employed in jobs with social security protection rose between 2006 to 2016 by about 15,000 to just under 166,000.  However, the number of full-time employed fell by 700 during the same period, while the number of part-time employees rose by around 14,000 to over 38,000.
The number of temporary contract workers (most of them working full-time) has tripled during the past 10 years to 9,986.  Some 37,000 workers in Duisburg have a so-called mini-job and 10,000 of these workers have more than one job in order to earn enough money to survive. This means that more than a third of all workers in Duisburg are employed part-time, on a temporary basis or/and in a mini-job.
A study drawn up by the DGB, reported by the Berliner Zeitung at the beginning of July, notes that this trend is taking place nationwide.  More than 1 million people are hired out by agencies, 8.5 million in part-time work, while 2.53 million have temporary employment. Nearly 2 million are registered as self-employed.
The DGB study also notes that the one-fifth of the workforce with the lowest hourly wages between 1995 and 2015 experienced a real wage loss of 7 percent.  The next fifth of the workforce lost 5 percent.  This is a direct consequence of the policy of the trade unions themselves.
While the WSI researchers seek to conceal the reasons for widespread poverty, referring to the “complex links” between employment growth and poverty, it is clear who profits.
The Global Wealth Report drawn up by the Swiss bank Crédit Suisse (November 2016) reveals a significant growth in the fortunes of the rich and super-rich.  The report notes that the number of dollar millionaires in Germany increased by 44,000 to around 1.6 million between mid-2015 and mid-2016.  The club of super-rich, with a fortune of at least $50 million, increased by 500 to a total of 6,100.  This put Germany in third place behind the US and China. According to Forbes, 114 billionaires live in Germany.  The richest 36 of them have as much wealth (€276 billion) as the poorer half of the population.
This growing social inequality can only be halted by a policy directed against all of the political parties at the beck and call of the major banks and corporations.
In its election statement for this autumn’s federal election, the Socialist Equality Party declares:

“The SGP fights for a society in which the needs of the many stand higher than the profit interests of big business.  The super-rich, the banks and the corporations must be expropriated and placed under the democratic control of the population.  Only in this way can the social rights of all be secured.  These include the right to an adequately paid job, a first-class education, affordable housing, a secure pension, high quality old-age provisions and access to culture.”


SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

12 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Dead World Walking
Dead World Walking
Jul 21, 2017 10:20 AM

The history of the world is a history of the few exploiting the many.
No matter.
Climate catastrophe is coming and the playing field will be levelled and under water.
Then, and only then, will the sleepers awake.

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Jul 21, 2017 3:10 PM

From all I’m reading the global warming hoax is very likely to turn into a global cooling event like the Little Ice Age we came out of circa 1850 Warm times are prosperous. Cold Kills. Book: Heaven and Earth global warming: the missing science, by Prof. Ian Plimer.
Site: http://www.wattsupwiththat.com
John Doran.

Dead World Walking
Dead World Walking
Jul 22, 2017 1:08 AM
Reply to  jdseanjd

Ian Plimer is an ex company director of BHP, an associate member of the IPA (a right wing think tank) and has close ties with the Australian COALition Party.
Nuff said.

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Sep 19, 2017 4:09 PM

Prof. (of geology) Ian Plimer is also the author of a very fine book with over 2,200 references to peer-reviewed literature etc on the CAGW/CC hoax.
FYI, bricks for brains, politics & employment are irrelevant in science. Science deals with facts, politics deals with sphincters such as yourself. So take your completely valueless insults & innuendos & shuv ’em where the sun don’t shine, sideways. 🙂

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Jul 21, 2017 9:18 AM

I have been saying this for two or three years now & see no reason to change my mind: “The Hunger Games is where they’re herding us.”
2008 the Banksters screwed the world financial system up, our poxy bought & paid for politicians declared them “Too Big To Fail” , put their debts on the backs of small taxpayers, & awarded us policies of austerity to pay for the Banksters’ sins.
We now live in a form of Fascism, disguised as a democracy, aimed at a Hunger Games world of Lords & Serfs.
The big banks must be broken up, competition in banking introduced, a £Bradbury or similar system of money creation without debt instituted, with, as in Iceland, trials & jail sentences handed out to fraudster Banksters & war criminals like the Stony Bliar.
I’m not holding my breath.
John Doran.

BigB
BigB
Jul 20, 2017 7:05 PM

“Evidently the link between employment growth and poverty is more complicated than commonly assumed.”
Not really: it is a function of debt. “Workers’ share of GDP falls as the debt ratio rises” (even if the workers don’t borrow.) [Steve Keen] As Keen’s ‘Figure 5’ shows: as the ‘Capitalists’ and ‘Workers’ share falls; the ‘Bankers’ share soars. That’s that cleared up then. Debt.
Money is created as debt: plus Interest. “Antiquity had no distinct word to distinguish interest from usury” [Michael Hudson.] If it was ancient wisdom that debt and interest creates the forced immiseration of the people: why do we not have a clue? And why do we do precisely nothing about it?
The central bankers solution to forced immiseration is more forced immiseration. Reverse-blame the (not wholly innocent) people for the “sky-high level of household indebtedness”: to exonerate a rigged and brutally corrupt system that they have extracted all the profit from? Neat trick? Then impose a ten year reset of austere “living within our means” to avoid a “taper tantrum“? Taper tantrum??? WTF!!! Another 10 years will see a taper tantrum, alright!!!
Ten years of austerity, starting from 7 years of austerity: a Phillip Hammond wet dream! For everyone else, a not very pleasant image; inducing a living nightmare! In ten years the bankers will own everything; there will be bread riots; racist slogans on every wall; and a Fascist demagogue on every street corner. Is that what they want???
According to Michael Hudson [in “J is for Junk Economics”]: as far back as 5 millennia BP – a ‘Jubilee Year’ was declared every 50 years in Sumer and Babylonia. Rather than destroy civilization, the economic slate was wiped clean. Steve Keen makes the case for a ‘Modern Debt Jubilee’ in his latest book (“Can We Avoid Another Financial Crisis”: excerpt linked to above.) If it was acknowledged as ancient wisdom how to avoid forced immiseration and collapse of civilization: why can’t we avoid it too??? If the people were ever going to wise up, now would be a good time.

tutisicecream
tutisicecream
Jul 21, 2017 4:28 AM
Reply to  BigB

The euphemism “Midland Banker” always comes into my mind when I think of bankers and the Fat Cat sector. Their commissioned largess should act as a warning to the rest of society. As capitalisms most efficient grave diggers we are reminded from time to time why they are so hated.
Yet strangely, as in all cases where dialectical contradictions operate, they still manage to be elevated to the near status of gods. Well false gods. Their business re-branded as an industry!
But it seems to me that economic Darwinism leads to obesity where the Fat Cats can no longer match the pace of the butchers dog. Something has to give.
The only thing that keeps the whole illusion going is greed. And it is not good.

BigB
BigB
Jul 21, 2017 2:15 PM
Reply to  tutisicecream

Not “Midland Banker”: surely “Berkshire Hunt”? 😉

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Jul 20, 2017 5:24 PM

“According to their research, an average of about 10 percent of the workforce aged between 18 and 64 in the countries studied were “working poor.” This means they earn less than 60 percent of the average income in their country. The proportion of working poor was highest in Romania at 18.6 percent, followed by Greece, 13.4 percent, and Spain, 13.2 percent.”
Just give it some time. As the average income continues to be whittled down, the earnings of today’s “working poor” will be tomorrow’s average of all who will be employed and they will no longer be poor.
There is something about statistics that has always rubbed me the wrong way . . .
But the conclusion that Elisabeth reaches is incontrovertible.

betrayedplanet
betrayedplanet
Jul 20, 2017 4:39 PM

Sadly this will continue unabated until/unless we figure out a way to force change. The agenda of the Neocons is to reduce the ordinary people to poverty and servitude, that is what Totalitarian Capitalism is and it is where we are headed without a massive organised fightback of epic proportions.
The whole Neocon theory on freedom and democracy means freedom for themselves to do as they wish, a cage in the form of servitude and low pay for the rest of us. The militarised police force in the US is part of this ruthless ideology which is spreading to Europe and is already becoming entrenched here in the UK. Deregulation is a massive part also and as we can see from the Grenfell fire poor people burning is an irrelevance to the Neocons whose vision is for a dystopia for me and you, supreme wealth for themselves. Deregulation means no accountability, little to no oversight, a bonfire with which to burn the people.
A very well organised boycott of the corporations would be a lovely thing to witness, enough to bring them down. A change in our whole way of looking at the current model we are being literally forced to live under, something to leave to our children, I have four.

rehmat1
rehmat1
Jul 20, 2017 3:11 PM

As long as the Western nations are in the grip of the inhuman Capitalism – the income disparity will continue to grow. In fact, non-European nations are suffering more from this Western cancer. For example, in 2012 Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that one out three Jewish child lives in poverty even though the entity is home to highest numbers of billionaires (10) and millionaires (340) in the region.
In India – 55% of its 1.1 billion citizens or 645 million people, are living in poverty….
https://rehmat1.com/2014/10/07/india-mass-poverty-and-the-44-thieves-government/

mohandeer
mohandeer
Jul 20, 2017 1:42 PM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.