[igl]

Lies. Merkels government just changed how the number is calculated. They created programs for unemployed (1 euro jobber, "Aufstocker") and removed them from the statistic.

They still receive social support but are not "fully unemployed"

http://www1.wdr.de/nachrichten/arbeitslose-statistik-100.htm... (german)

The growing income inequality tells the real story.

[denzil_correa]

If I understand this correctly, currently there are 7.3M "mini jobs" in Germany - 733,600 (2.4%) lesser than last year. 2.6M (approx. 36%) of these mini jobs are side jobs i.e. jobs taken to earn additional money (may include students as well).

https://statistik.arbeitsagentur.de/Navigation/Statistik/Sta...

[dmix]

There was a study [1][2] which showed most of the job growth in recent years in the US has been via 'temporary' or part-time jobs. So the recovery that Obama took credit for using the blanket statistics such as 'unemployment rate' is heavily skewed towards people who compromised with jobs that were worse than the one they held before the crisis.

As the study mentions, this was heavily influenced by the effects of the 'gig economy' via tech companies which created a larger percentage of contractor jobs.

Instead of pretending the gig economy will go away because we don't like it, maybe we should strengthen the safety net to protect these types of contract workers. Such as expanding unemployment to contract workers who are employed for a certain timeframe. Which would also help provide protections to the large number of web developers, designers, and other tech jobs which are a growing in number in recent years who don't fit into the typical 9-to-5 framework.

[1] Source: https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/nearly-95-of-all... (note: this trend started before Obama, within the last years of Bush's administration, but that would be less newsworthy headline)

[2] the actual study https://krueger.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/akrueger/f...

[jo909]

That is nothing new though. So in the boundaries of what this statistic actually measures, the number improved.

The "real" statistic isn't a secret either and published at the same time by the same agency for everyone to see.

http://m.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/a-1133354.html

[MrBuddyCasino]

But that article says the numbers improved considerably.

Using the same method (and tricks) to calculate unemployment, the numbers went down from 7 million in 2005 to 4 million today.

[davrosthedalek]

That's a very good article with a very fair description of the situation.

[waibelp]

Long Story short translated:

1) Some people work to get paid lese than others that dont work

2) Those people need to go get help in form of money: Aufstocker

3) A lot of them need to get their food from Caritas and other organizations like "die Tafel" because they dont have enough money to buy food

Yes, Germany is a wealthy country but most of its citizens are poor.

[moomin]

Yeah, we're constantly organising charity drives for the Heidelberg tent cities in the EU.

Get a grip. It's a prosperous country with a decent social safety net and an extremely large middle class.

And a record of electing sensible moderates, but I'm sure that's a complete coincidence.

[denzil_correa]

> Yes, Germany is a wealthy country but most of its citizens are poor.

What do you mean by "most of the citizens" are poor? I can understand if you say that Germany income gap is increasing but I can't understand this part.

[kjdal2001]

I think he is paraphrasing a quote from Kurt Vonnegut.

"America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor..."

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/158414-america-is-the-wealth...

[spacedude]

Mostly because it's bullshit.

[someSven]

No one needs to get donated food. These leftovers are given away for free instead of throwing them away. Some people are using this for propaganda, and to many are falling for it.

[waibelp]

Sure? Even retired people who worked their whole life don't have enough money to buy food: http://www.mdr.de/sachsen-anhalt/ansturm-tafel-sachsen-anhal...

Even in stronger regions like "Baden Württemberg" everybody can see a lot of people with the same problem but it's easier to look away and talk about propaganda.

[shaqbert]

While your statement is indeed true, the German way of calculating unemployment is actually more conservative than the US way. There the ones who stop looking for work are dropped from the statistics...

[someSven]

There is no growing inequality. There are more one person househols and immigrants with lower wages.

[thesagan]

I think a citation is needed, because I see a lot of cites of the opposite. One from a long list on a quick Google search: http://www.pulse.ng/world/angela-merkel-germany-wealth-inequ... http://www.france24.com/en/20170323-germany-wealth-inequalit... http://www.dw.com/en/study-income-inequality-reaches-new-hig... https://www.google.com/search?q=german+wealth+inequality&tbs...

[someSven]

Your cited sites don't care for the reason. But Germany had a lot of immigration of people which make more money in Germany than they could at home, but less than the more native population.

Singles: https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/19/the-bi...