“With 15.7 percent of Germans in poverty, we have unfortunately reached a high point since reunification,” said Ulrich Schneider, head of the Equal Welfare Association, on Thursday. The report by the Equal Welfare Association argued that 12.9 million people in Germany were living below the poverty line in 2015. People without work and single parents were both particularly vulnerable to poverty, the Equal Welfare Association report stated. But the Equal Welfare Association figures are controversial. Destatis classifies people below the 60 percent mark as “threatened by poverty” as opposed to the Equal Welfare Association's definition, which describes them as poor.

Source: The Local March 03, 2017 07:01 UTC