The Left Party calls it another "poor testimony for the current social policy".

The Bertelsmann Foundation demands that "something finally change about the structural problem of child and youth poverty".

And the social association VdK even speaks of a “disaster for our welfare state”: In total, almost two million children live with their families in this country on the basic welfare state security, i.e. previously Hartz IV, now citizen income.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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In fact, the total number of children in the support system is higher today than it was in the middle of the last decade, as statistics from the Federal Employment Agency show.

Since May 2022 alone, it has increased by more than 200,000.

However, these data do not provide a valid basis for the thesis of rampant poverty.

Because it is also true that the number of children living on basic security would have been falling steadily for many years if hundreds of thousands of children had not been added as a result of refugee migration.

However, the criticism of a “disaster for the welfare state” does not mean taking in refugees.

A special evaluation by the Federal Employment Agency, which is available to the FAZ, now shows more details.

It shows that the number of German children in Hartz IV has fallen by more than half a million since 2015 - in September 2022 (latest data) the statistics still counted almost 1.04 million in basic security.

Compared to the annual average for 2015, this is a decrease of 535,995 or more than a third.

However, the number of children of foreign origin increased by 541,344 in the same period – to a total of 907,660 most recently.

The statistics therefore show hardly any changes for the total number of children affected: in 2015 they recorded 1.94 million children who, according to the definition of the social associations, were classified as poor due to receipt of Hartz IV - and for September 2022 only slightly more.

In between, however, the number rose to more than 2 million;

and a drop to 1.7 million by May 2022.

It has been rising again since June.

Number of Ukrainian children in the support system has increased rapidly

Contrary to what might be expected, however, this recent increase has little to do with the impoverishment of domestic families through inflation and high energy costs.

Rather, it goes back to the decision of the federal and state governments to give refugees from Ukraine direct access to basic security from June 1, 2022.

As a result, the number of Ukrainian children in the support system jumped from 2,300 to almost 200,000 in June.

For September, the evaluation shows 256,143 children of Ukrainian nationality.

Otherwise, the total number of those affected would have continued to fall from June to September.

The first significant increase in child poverty, as defined in this way, can be traced back to the strong refugee migration from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries in 2015 and 2016.

The evaluation shows that, on average in 2015, a total of 78,000 children from the eight most important countries of origin of asylum lived on Hartz IV benefits.

Their number peaked at 402,000 in 2020, and was last hovering at just over 380,000.

By far the largest group, around 217,000 in September, were children from Syria.

As a result of these developments, children of foreign origin now account for almost half of all children in the support system.

Since 2015, their share has risen from almost 19 percent to 47 percent.

In the western federal states, more foreign children than German children recently received basic security, as can be seen from the statistics: In the group of “non-employable beneficiaries” in the west, 613,000 Germans faced 624,000 foreigners.

Such an inventory is important for social policy because the impoverishment of the domestic population might need different political instruments than the arrival of children and families who have fled war and displacement.

This could, for example, concern the consideration of whether available budget funds should be directed towards increasing monthly cash benefits or whether an expansion of language courses, day-care centers and schools should be given the highest political and fiscal priority.

The Bertelsmann Foundation published a "fact sheet" on child poverty on Thursday, prompting a number of social organizations and social politicians to make appalled statements.

The paper, which also uses the basic security statistics as a data source, only touches on Ukrainian children in passing.

As a consequence of their analysis, the foundation demanded that the traffic light government, like the associations, implement the planned reform of "basic child security" "as quickly as possible".

For the Greens and SPD, this is primarily aimed at paying higher social transfers to jobless households with children, in order to then melt them away at higher incomes.

Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) recently presented the first key points;

The financing is still open.