Depth report

　　

"I'm alive, but I can't live a good life." Doris, a 71-year-old retired nurse, said in Gelsenkirchen, a former coal mining town in Germany. Spend 10 euros to see a movie. But what really hurts my heart is that I don’t have the money to buy gifts for my grandchildren."

    Doris clearly embodies a disturbing fact: Angela Merkel told the Germans that they "lived in the best time ever in Germany", but many people living in this country The poor think otherwise.

    The parliamentary elections in September provided them with an opportunity to speak out. Martin Schulz, Merkel's main opponent and SPD leader, now regards social inequality as the core issue of his campaign. "Time for more equality. Time for Martin Schulz" (Time for more equality. Time for Martin Schulz)-this is the main slogan of the Social Democratic Party.

    The attention to inequality may seem unexpected, especially when other countries in the industrialized world are watching Germany’s economic performance enviously. Germany is very wealthy, and its per capita income ranks first among the major EU countries, easily ahead of Britain, France and Italy. Germany’s unemployment rate is the lowest among EU countries: labor shortages are the biggest headache for German bosses.

    However, as Schultz clearly pointed out, the cloud of disparity between the rich and the poor looms over many Germans. These issues are particularly cause for concern because many Germans have long believed that after World War II eliminated the old elite and left a more equal country, they lived in an exceptionally fair society.

    In a recent television survey by the German Public Broadcasting Union (ARD), voters ranked social inequality as the second largest problem in Germany, second only to the German government’s refugee policy. Unemployment (a major problem in other EU countries) ranks fifth.

    Germany has rich cities such as Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, as well as hundreds of successful industrial towns, which constitute the backbone of the country’s economy; Gelsenkirchen is at the other end of the German economic scale and constitutes the German economy. The towns of the pillars are irrelevant.

    Like many other poorer towns, the problem is not obvious: with the help of central government funds, Gelsenkirchen has developed a modern shopping pedestrian street, a well-known concert hall and Bundesliga's leading team Schalke 04 (Schalke 04) A world-class football stadium.

    On a sunny day not long ago, the residents on the streets of Gelsenkirchen who wore designer T-shirts, jeans and sneakers would not look shabby even if they were put in any fashionable resort. Annette Berg, director of social services in the city, said: "Can you see the poverty in Gelsenkirchen? You can't. Because (German social security) is okay, people on the street will not be exposed. Poor things. They will make sure their children are dressed decently. But they can’t afford anything better if they don’t have a job."

    Many of Doris's neighbors in Gelsenkirchen are trapped on the same "broken ship." Hit by the fall in coal prices, Gelsenkirchen, which used to get rich from coal, is now one of the poorest towns in Germany. Last year, the town’s unemployment rate was 14.7%, ranking first among large towns and cities, far exceeding the national average unemployment rate of 5.5%. Family income is among the lowest, as is the health level, and even the health of children is at the lowest level in the country.

    Such sentiments are now starting to drive political debates in Germany. Marcel Fratzscher, head of the economic think tank DIW, which advises the Social Democratic Party, said: "The economy is in good shape. The biggest problem is those who are left behind."

    So, how unequal is Germany? Has there been any change in the 12 years of the Merkel administration? Statistics show that since the reunification of Germany in 1990, the country has indeed become more and more unequal, but in the past five years with strong economic output growth, improved employment and higher wages, the inequality problem has been partially alleviated.

    In terms of household income-which is perhaps the most important determinant of general inequality-Germany is close to the EU average. But in terms of wealth, Germany is far less equal than other countries in the European Union. The proportion of assets controlled by the country's wealthier households is greater than that of most Western European countries. The bottom 40% of Germans have almost no assets or even bank deposits.

    In terms of income, the gap between the poorest 10% of Germans and the richest 10% began to widen in the mid-1990s. The reasons are the same as those of other developed countries, namely, globalization and unemployment brought about by technological changes.

    After reunification, Germany initially experienced economic stagnation, and later benefited from export prosperity, trade union restraint on wage issues, and the "Hartz IV" (Hartz IV) package of labor market and social welfare reforms (promoting more unemployed people to find Work), Germany has achieved economic recovery.

    As the benefits of the "Harz IV"-adopted by Merkel's predecessor and Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder-gradually emerged, the overall effect is impressive: not only has Germany restored The leading position in the European Union has consolidated Merkel's support rate, which came to power in 2005.

    However, despite the drop in unemployment, people with lower incomes initially benefited less than those with higher incomes. In the past five years, as the union has won substantial salary increases for employees, and the legal minimum wage that took effect in 2015 has supported wage levels, the income gap between the two groups has narrowed.

    In terms of lowering the unemployment rate and increasing the number of employed persons to a record 44 million, it is the increase in "mini" jobs (part-time jobs that are less regulated) from 4.1 million jobs in 2002 to more than 7.5 million this year. Posts. Proponents of "mini" jobs say they can create opportunities for certain groups, such as mothers who look after young children at home, students, and retired elderly people. But critics believe that “mini” jobs often replace full-time positions, especially in the catering and retail industries. The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) stated that instead of paving the way for employees to transfer to permanent jobs, “mini” jobs have become a “dead end” where they cannot go out.

    A more substantial change in income can offset a larger cause of inequality in Germany-the distribution of assets between the poor and the rich. Assets are particularly uneven in Germany. Although there are not as many billionaires in Germany as the United Kingdom, Germany has a large number of millionaires-often concentrated in families with small and medium-sized industrial companies.

    Fratzscher, who is an adviser to the Social Democratic Party, said: “The richest 10% control wealth, which is often passed on from generation to generation, growing productive wealth. The poorest 40% have nothing.”

    Three factors are at play. First, only 45% of Germans own their own homes. Others rent houses, especially in big cities. Property values in big cities are high. With relatively rare speculative buyers, German housing prices have been relatively stable in the past few decades. However, since the 2008 global financial crisis, housing prices in big cities have risen sharply, further widening the wealth gap between the proletariat and the proletariat. Although the market provides affordable housing, homeowners are discouraged from investing—and this is a common way to accumulate wealth in other regions.

    Second, for the vast majority of people who have spent most of their careers in full-time jobs, Germany’s state pension is generous, but Doris of Gelsenkirchen is different from them. The wealthy still have private savings to supplement their pensions, but ordinary Germans have no savings. In general, for the elderly, the life guaranteed by the state pension is at least as good as that of private funds that generally exist in the United States and the United Kingdom. But the state pension lacks the flexibility of capital withdrawal—for example, you cannot retire early and withdraw all pensions at once—the money may be able to provide start-up capital for entrepreneurship.

    Finally, the German inheritance tax law is beneficial to business owners. The law basically exempts the assets invested in production enterprises from taxation, as long as the heirs promise to retain jobs. This pro-commercial approach has the unintended consequence that rich Germans are motivated to keep their money in the family business and become richer as a result, instead of investing money in mansions or art like the rich in other countries. Products and other assets.

    Last year, when the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the law was too favorable for business owners, the ruling coalition of the Conservative Party-Social Democrat Party led by Merkel had the opportunity to overhaul the law. But the government only made fine-tuning, and almost no one publicly protested except the extreme left.

    Major reforms to the inheritance tax are not on Schultz’s political agenda. Most Germans agree with Hütte’s point of view. The pro-business economist said: “I don’t see the inequality problem... because small business owners have the obligation to provide employment and benefit society. Tax incentives."

    The uneven distribution of income and assets has exacerbated social inequality. In the "Project for International Student Assessment" (PISA) organized by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) composed of industrialized countries, German schools are ahead of European schools. But in reducing the gap between children from rich and poor families, German schools lag behind other European countries. In 2015, in Germany, the impact of students’ family background on their performance differences was 16%, while the OECD average was only 13%; however, the situation in Germany is improving, and the impact was as high as 20% in 2006. .

    In terms of health, the difference between the rich and the poor in Germany also seems to exceed the EU average. In terms of self-consideration as healthy or not, the gap between the rich and the poor in Germany is only smaller than that of the four OECD member states.

    In addition, there have always been inequalities between regions in Germany. Although the East German region, which once insisted on communism, made great progress after the reunification of the two Germanys in 1990, the income of the region is still about one-third lower than that of the west. Young people no longer leave in batches, but because immigrants are unlikely to settle in the east, the remaining population of East Germany is aging faster than West Germany. 24% of East Germany’s population is over 65 years old. If the two Germanys are not unified, East Germany will be the country with the oldest average population in the world.