The Downside Of Recovery: Germany's Middle Class Is Vanishing

Business Insider ^ | 07/28/2010 | Isabelle Schaefer

[SeekAndFind]

Since the year 2000, the German middle class has slowly diminished, while the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, a recent study by the German Institute of Economic Science shows.

The middle class now represents 61.5% of the population, down from 64% ten years earlier. The number of people with lower income, on the other hand, has increased by four percentage points to 22%, and the richest now represent 19% of the population, or 3 percentage points more than in 2000.

Some newspapers have gone so far as to talk about "Panic in the middle class", as in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. But some experts pointed out that as the lower class' proportion to the population is growing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the middle class is vanishing, but simply that the lower income class is increasing

[Tarpon]

Hey amazingly the same thing happened in Venezuela. Equal misery for all ... The liberal utopia.

[Tarpon]

Hey amazingly the same thing happened in Venezuela. Equal misery for all ... The liberal utopia.

[the_Watchman]

But some experts pointed out that as the lower class' proportion to the population is growing, that doesn't necessarily mean that the middle class is vanishing, but simply that the lower income class is increasing

Clearly some "experts" who are barely qualified to fill out income tax returns! They must want cushy jobs in the Obama administration.

[elcid1970]

Lebe wohl, Deutschland! Das ist das Ende....das Ende.

[Bob Buchholz]

I’m not a math major, simply a computer science major, but if the middle class dropped by 2.5% and the lower class went up by 4% and the upper class also went up by 3%, either we now have 105.5% of the people is all classes or else there are about 5.5% of classless people.

[US Navy Vet]

Germany went into the toilet when Otto Von Bismark took over. Never forget Germany “gave(inflicted)” on us(the World) Engels and Marx.

[Bob Buchholz]

is all classes = IN all classes (not an English major either)

[ken5050]

Germany went through a huge upheaval with reunification...the cost was tremendous, but the west was near unanimous in the need/obligation todo so. I wonder how this has skewed the stats...

[LeonardFMason]

Mein Kampf2 coming soon to a Germany near you.

[Amberdawn]

Yup-And the Frankfort School of socialist morons who descended from Bismarck.

[Wuli]

There is something fishy in the stats.

The decline in the Middle Class represented only 2.5% of the population. Yet, the lowest income group grew by 4% of the population and the highest income group grew by 3% of the population??? A net gain of 4.5%??? (-2.5 + 4 + 3 = 4.5).

And the error shows in the totals, 64% + (22% - 4%) + (19% - 3%) = 98.5%; 61.5% + 22% + 19% = 102.5%; 102.5% - 98% = 4.5%.

[wolf78]

4.5%

Unemployment, mostly due to remaining structural problems of the East German economy 10 year after reunification.

[Wuli]

“Unemployment” explains the 4.5%?

Not without an explanation it doesn’t; a numerical and statistical explanation.

And 4.5%, (via “unemployment” or anything else) does not explain income numbers that at one point only reflect 98% of the people, and then, at the next point reflect 102.5% of the people.