Report identifies poverty as major problem in Germany’s big cities

BERLIN, April 3 — The poverty rate in German cities is at a much higher level than in Germany as a whole, according to a report released by the Bertelsmann Foundation on Tuesday.
The report said, the share of social benefit recipients in the population in 2016 was 10.1 percent across Germany. By contrast, it stood at 14.0 percent in big cities, i.e. cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants.
Correspondingly, city dwellers perceive a rise in poverty. In 2018, 46 percent of city dwellers believed that poverty in their city had risen over the past ten years. By contrast, 34 percent of all citizens in Germany held the same conviction, the Bertelsmann Foundation said citing a representative survey it commissioned.
In 13 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the Ruhr region, poverty has increased as compared to ten years ago, while ten eastern German cities registered a lower poverty rate than ten years ago, according to the report which attributed the increase of poverty in Ruhr to not-yet-finished restructuring.

XINHUA