Today in Germany: A round-up of what's happening on Thursday

Tweet of the day

Amid a partial lockdown that has seen much of public life in Germany brought to a standstill, it’s easy to feel a bit bummed out that our greatest adventure nowadays might be a walk around the block before eating a frozen pizza. 

Many are going at least a little stir crazy and plotting their next adventure, as this Tweet captures so well. Where in Germany would you travel to next, when time and current restrictions allow?

Decreasing child poverty

According to figures published by Germany’s Statistical Office Thursday, child poverty decreased by 15 percent in 2019. 

A total of 2.1 million children under 18 were considered at risk of poverty in 2019, representing a significant decrease compared to previous years. 

In 2018, 17.3 percent of children and young people were still at risk of poverty and social exclusion; in 2010, the figure was as high as 21.7 percent.

German vocabulary word: child poverty - (die) Kinderarmut

New Year’s Eve anti-coronavirus measures demonstration

Usually New Year’s Eve is celebrated at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate through a festival filled with live music, food, dancing and of course fireworks which illuminate the sky as the clock strikes midnight. 

But this year, things could look different, and not only because of the lack of festivities and possible fireworks ban.

READ ALSO: Police and politicians in Germany call for ban on New Year's Eve fireworks

The ‘Querdenker’ (unconventional thinker) movement on Thursday called on anti-coronavirus measure activists from around the country to descend on the capital on Silvester. 

The announcement follows a demonstration on Wednesday, in which more than 10,000 coronavirus-measure opponents protested near the Brandenburg Gate before police broke up the event with water canons and made more than 200 arrests. 

German vocabulary word: movement - (die) Bewegung

Weather report

Temperatures around Germany have continued to dip, reaching averages countrywide of 9 and 12C on Thursday, according to the German Weather Service. But the big drop won’t come until 

Friday, the coldest day of the week, when temperatures will dip to around 6 or 7 across Germany, as the following map from DWD shows.

The mercury will sink further over the weekend, or between 2 and 6C on Saturday and 3 and 8C on Sunday. 

The north of Germany is expected to get particularly chilly, with squalls likely on Thursday afternoon, said DWD.

German vocabulary word: the squalls - (die) Sturmböen

Inequality on the rise

Amid the coronavirus crisis the divide between low and high wage earners in Germany is growing even more. 

A full fifty percent of households with an income less than €900 per month say that they’ve experienced income loss due to the coronavirus crisis, whereas only 25 percent of households earning more than €4,500 per month can say the same, according to new data from the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences (WSI).

According to WSI data, 60 percent of the poorest families affected suffered losses of more than a quarter of their usual income, while only 28 percent of the richest families had losses of this magnitude.

Just under one in ten households with a pre-crisis income of less than €900 even stated that they had lost their entire income. 

This could reflect the massive reduction in mini-jobs – 837,000 of them were lost between March and June alone.

German vocabulary word: inequality - (die) Ungleichheit

READ ALSO: Why the coronavirus crisis is hitting people with mini-jobs particularly hard