Inequality in Germany: This poverty report has to go

The future government coalition should do social policy a service immediately after the election - and abolish the federal government's poverty and wealth report.

In its presentation so far, this bundle of analyzes and studies does not make a meaningful contribution to gaining political knowledge.

It is misused by relevant government and interest representatives as election campaign ammunition and supposed confirmation of previously defined demands.

The cabinet has just approved the new edition of the work that the Minister of Social Affairs compiles every four years.

And what follows from that?

A press release by Hubertus Heil (SPD), according to which "all income areas" have benefited from the economic upswing - but which also complains about the "consolidation of poverty".

From which Heil razor-sharp concludes that there must be a minimum wage of 12 euros "as soon as possible" and a departure from the Hartz IV labor market reform.

"No escape from poverty," reported the German press agency.

Interpretation sovereignty in the election campaign

In fact, the report contains passages on a study that found a lower level of upward mobility than in the 1980s. But he also says that the proportion of people in serious economic hardship in this country has recently almost halved. And there is the sentence: "For many people, times of low income represent transition phases."

More important than the question of how this diversity can be explained academically would be a real discourse about which policies facilitate advancement - for example from long-term unemployment to the middle class. Or should one simply believe that this is more likely to succeed if the Hartz IV rates rise sharply and every effort to earn additional income through personal contribution is punished with prohibitive transfer deductions of more than 80 percent? And that combined with ever more stringent regulation of the supply of entry-level jobs?

Of course, the abolition of the poverty and wealth report should not suppress the content. On the contrary: the government could simply publish the analyzes used continuously - then they would be much more likely to be perceived and discussed in their full breadth. But the political fear of a loss of interpretative sovereignty in the election campaign is probably too great for that.