Poverty in Germany: Two-million people too poor to heat their homes
On February 15, as temperatures plunged well below zero, snow and frost covered large parts of Europe and the homeless froze to death on the streets, the German Federal Statistics Office reported that more than 2 million people in Germany were freezing in their homes because they were too poor to heat them.
The figures refer to 2019, when 2.5 percent of the population was afflicted by this problem. The proportion was particularly high among those living in single-person households, at 4.8 percent, and among single parents and their children, at 7 percent. The risk of falling seriously ill or even freezing to death in such conditions is very high.
Germany’s industrial sector avoided a contraction in December last year, despite COVID-19 lockdowns at home and abroad, as strong demand from China helped export-oriented manufacturers in Europe’s largest economy weather the COVID-19 pandemic.
Industrial output was flat on the month after an upwardly revised increase of 1.5 percent in the previous month, figures released by the German Federal Statistics Office showed.
This was the first stagnation following seven consecutive months of expansions.
The main drag came from construction where output fell by 3.2 percent. Looking at core manufacturing alone, output rose by 0.9 percent on the month.
“The German manufacturing sector has performed
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