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Government 'massaged' poverty report
Published: 28 Nov 12 12:21 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/money/20121128-46445.html
The German government has "massaged" its four-yearly "Poverty and Wealth Report", excising particularly critical passages, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Wednesday.
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In the introduction to the report, a statement saying "private wealth in Germany is distributed very unequally" -- present in a draft sent to different ministries in September for approval -- has been cut from a revised version dating from November 21, the newspaper said.
Similarly, a passage relating to wage developments has also been removed.
The offending paragraph said that "while wage developments at the top end showed a positive upward trend, wages at the lower end of the scale have fallen in price-adjusted terms in the past 10 years. The wage gap has widened."
And that could "jeopardize social cohesion," according to the first version of the report.
According to the Süddeutsche, Economy Minister Philipp Rösler made it known that the original draft version report "does not reflect the government's opinion."
Nevertheless, a spokeswoman for the labour ministry denied the report had been embellished.
"The changes were made after consultation with different ministries" in what was a "normal process," she told news agency AFP.
No date has yet been set for publication of the report, the spokeswoman added.
AFP/mry
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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Your comments about this article:
When one reads and sees how the upper income level has increased and their wages are inversely proportional to theirs, dissatisfaction with the system is the inevitable.
Oh, we wouldn't want you to leave this world, would we? So I will add my comment only to save you from dying, even if the article does not seem very interesting to me.
Widening the wage/wealth gap in Germany was already reported for some time (for example, about a year ago, there was even an article on TheLocal on this topic). Germany was and is probably still going towards the American structure, away from the one to be found in the Nordic countries. Obviously, there is and there will always be a gap between wealthy and poor people in all societies. What would be the ideal balance is still to be learned (or at least I do not have the information).
From political point of view, widening the gap is bad news for the parties in power (it brings votes to the opposition). So I find it hardly surprising that the government tried to hide such conclusions. Of course, it is not ethical to do something like that (if the conclusions were correctly drawn).
I am not familiar with the methodology of the report. It is however interesting to be noted that other official statistics contradict the idea of falling wages. It was actually you, Berlin fuer alles, that pointed out to them in another article. Those statistics had shown that overall no downward trend was to be spotted and also that several industries experienced repeated growth of salaries (such as the manufacturing or hospitality industry). Of course, the income/wealth gap can increase also when all incomes increase.
Berlin für alles: just polemic as always. Of course there are social problems in Germany, also Merkel underlines this. Even her party is pushing the idea of a minimum wage today.... But you must see that the situation in Germany - all together - is extraordinarily good compared to the southern part of Europe.
I am sure you have read the recent IEA report on world energy, by the year 2030 the USA will be the largest energy producer in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia.This will be a MAJOR game changer.The world will become more polarized, between those that have energy and those that do not.
"LONDON (CNNMoney) -- The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world's biggest oil producer before 2020, and will be energy independent 10 years later, according to a new forecast by the International Energy Agency."
So I am waiting for a upsurge in people voting for the wing parties (left and right ) or social unrest on the streets ,however the Germans only take to the streets on green issues something that I can't understand when other issues have at least the same value .