Summary

I can’t afford to properly feed my children. It’s a bitter feeling when all we have at the end of the month is bread and butter … It tears you apart. I feel like I’m not doing justice to anyone, not to the children, not to the household or life in general, and certainly not to myself.

— Lisbeth C., a 43-year-old working single mother of three sons living in a rural town in Saxony, February 10, 2023[1]

I’m a pensioner, and the support from the government simply isn’t enough. Life is expensive. At home I stay under a blanket and drink tea, coffee or soup to stay warm. There’s not much else to do.

— Sieglinde A., a 71-year-old woman living in a city in North-Rhine Westphalia, May 10, 2023[2]

Germany has the third largest economy in the world and was arguably the first modern welfare state. Yet poverty rates have risen considerably in the last two decades, with the most recent official data estimating that one in seven people (14.4 percent of the population—some 12.1 million people—living in monetary poverty, that is with a standard of living below the poverty line.[3] An increasing number of people do not have the financial resources to afford essentials such as food that ensures a healthy diet and struggle to heat their homes, far less pay out of pocket for necessary healthcare expenses. A central reason is a major restructuring of social security that began in 2005, and the related growth of a low-wage sector. The post-2005 social security system provided a meager unemployment benefit, known as “Hartz IV”, until the end of 2022 when it was replaced by the Bürgergeld, often translated as “Citizen’s Income” (but in fact open to both German and non-German citizens), which offers limited improvement. To address the problem of low wages, the state’s social security system makes a range of programs available to low-wage earners to supplement their incomes. But these programs, even combined, often generate insufficient income, with single-parent households, children, and people aged 65 and older experiencing specific negative impacts, particularly women. Women’s lower wages and sometimes necessitated breaks from employment, often to provide care, lead to lower levels of contributions to pensions during their years working, and as a consequence to older women disproportionately facing poverty.

The situation has become more pressing in recent years, as rapid inflation reached a generational high in 2022 and 2023, hitting Germany’s low-income households hard. This is despite welcome plans by the current federal government to reform and improve key aspects of social security support, and to put in place important ad hoc measures to support people with energy and transportation costs during the “cost of living crisis.” Poverty has particularly affected single-parent households, and people aged 65 and older (with women particularly at risk in both age groups), which has disproportionate consequences for their ability to secure and enjoy their rights. Despite its significant resources, and notwithstanding efforts to make improvements, Germany’s social security system – and the level of financial support it provides – is proving insufficient to ensure people, particularly these groups, enjoy an adequate standard of living.

This report—based on interviews with directly affected individuals, analysis of available data and official statistics, a comparison of social security income to the official monetary poverty threshold, and a review of secondary sources—documents the inadequacy of Germany’s social security system and its negative human rights impacts on single-parent, women-led households and older people, primarily women. The report also documents the sometimes onerous or excessively formal documentation requirements, eligibility criteria and processes for accessing, often means-tested social security programs, assesses government efforts to implement a new “Citizen’s Income” which replaces an earlier unemployment benefit, and to legislate for a universal child basic income, and examines structural factors exacerbating the gendered experience of poverty in Germany.

***

Federal government data show that one in five children in Germany is “at risk of poverty or social exclusion.” More than two in five of Germany’s single-parent households are currently considered by the government to be “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. These households with children include single parents who may be holding down more than one job, parents who are unemployed, those who are self-employed, who receive various types of existing—and often complicated to access—means-tested social security benefits, but still do not have enough to get to the end of each month. Women are over-represented in single-parent households and low-wage jobs. Longstanding structural factors—including in some states the lack of full day schooling and care and standardized free lunch provision, and existing gender stereotypes around caring roles—have left many single mothers either unable to work or limited to low-wage part-time work. Many of the single mothers we interviewed reported going hungry, or rationing food or heating, to keep their children fed and warm. Among single-parent households receiving the Citizen’s Income as their sole income, benefits are between 26 to 51 percent below the poverty threshold, after accounting for housing expenses.

Meanwhile, over the past two decades, poverty among people aged 65 and older has continued to rise as the costs of many essential goods and services, access to which is guaranteed by Germany as part of their human rights obligations, have become increasingly unaffordable for many older people and especially those on low, fixed pensions. Federal government data estimate about one in six (just over 18 percent) people aged 65 and older is “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”, with older women at greater risk than their male counterparts. Older people living on low incomes described significant hardship and having to make difficult choices between paying for food, heating, covering bills for dentistry, eyeglasses or orthopedic aids, and dealing with unexpected costs like household repairs. The report finds evidence that basic pension support, even when taken together with other forms of support for housing and heating, can leave older people well below the official monetary poverty threshold.

The “gender pension gap”—a term used to describe the structural impact of factors such as lower wages, career breaks, caring responsibilities, and increased likelihood of part-time work based on gender stereotypes and roles—leaves many older women with pensions that provide incomes well below the monetary poverty threshold of €1,168 per month for a single adult. Official data show that monthly pension payments equate to incomes less than €1,000 a month for 38.2 percent of women aged 65 and older, compared to 14.7 percent of men the same age.

A major restructuring of the social security system and labor market under the “Hartz reforms” from 2003 onwards is closely linked to the rise in poverty. In particular a type of unemployment allowance (Arbeitslosengeld II or ALG II, known colloquially as “Hartz IV”), in place between 2005 and the end of 2022, provided an increasingly insufficient amount of social security support and included harsh conditionalities that limited access. By reducing the length of unemployment benefit eligibility and requiring people to accept any “reasonable” job, the Hartz reforms encouraged the rapid growth of a low-wage economy based on part-time “mini-jobs” and “midi-jobs,” temporary work schemes which allow reduced or zero social security and tax contributions. Women are overrepresented in these low-wage, part-time jobs. Child-related benefits targeted at low-income households with children can be complex and time-consuming to apply for, and applications can be denied if not made in the correct sequence.

The inadequacies of Germany’s social security system are also reflected in growing food insecurity. The country’s main food aid organization, the Tafel network, estimates that the number of clients seeking its assistance increased from 1.5 million people in 2014 to more than 2 million in 2022.[4] Many older people receiving a basic pension and low-income, single-parent households have no alternative but to turn to food banks and charitable organizations for support. There is an emerging tacit acceptance by food aid distributors interviewed by Human Rights Watch that people receiving income from social security will also require emergency food assistance. Marcus Wergin, coordinator of the Petruskirche food distribution in Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), explained, as around 200 people assembled for a regular food parcel collection:

The growing number of people that are now turning to us do so for various reasons—the cost of living has increased, heating expenses have gone up, food prices have surged (in some cases they have doubled, if not more). That drives people to the food bank … This is about human rights—to be able to lead a fulfilling life, you need basic security. … The assistance we provide here is nothing grand. It’s not luxury.[5]

In December 2021, the ‘traffic light coalition’—named for the traditional red, yellow, and green colors of the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Free Democrats/Liberals who formed it—entered government, promising significant changes to the social security system developed by previous governments since 2005. The traffic light coalition government set out plans to replace the “Hartz IV” unemployment allowance with a redesigned non-contributory unemployment benefit that it called Bürgergeld, the “Citizen’s Income” (or sometimes also translated as “Citizen’s Benefit” or “Citizen’s Allowance”), which despite its name is open to both German and non-German citizen residents. This was supposed to be both more generous in the support it provided and less punitive in the conditions attached to receiving that support. The government also promised to streamline child-related social security programs, and introduce a new “universal child basic income” (Kindergrundsicherung) with a higher rate of financial support than the existing child benefit (Kindergeld).

However, just as the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic eased and the new government assumed office at the end of 2021, Germany experienced particularly sharp price inflation for many staple goods, linked in part to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. By the end of 2022, household food costs had increased by more than 20 percent from the previous year, and energy prices had increased almost 35 percent.

Just as more people struggled to afford essentials, the government’s promised improvements to the social security system fell short or simply failed to materialize, as a result of political infighting within the coalition. The new Citizen’s Income—put in place to replace and improve the “Hartz IV” unemployment benefit—was scaled back in ambition. A considerable 12.1 percent increase in social security payment levels at the start of 2024 was followed by a freeze in 2025. The government reintroduced punitive sanctions, which involve the withholding of payment for failing to meet certain criteria and conditionality for Citizen’s Income recipients, and curtailed a promising scheme providing a bonus payment for jobseekers engaging in work training. Yearly increases in pension payments failed to match price inflation, meaning older people’s pension incomes went less far, and little seems to have been done to address the gender pension gap. By the start of 2025, progress on the new universal basic child income had all but completely stalled in the final days of the outgoing government.

At time of writing the fate of the modest improvements to unemployment benefits, partly curtailed by the government that legislated for them, and the plans for improved child-related social security payments, are both uncertain and subject to the agreement of parties negotiating to form a new coalition government, following the February 2025 general election.

Germany is bound by European and international human rights treaty obligations to respect, protect and fulfil all economic, social and cultural rights, including, of particular relevance to this report, the rights to social security and an adequate standard of living.  

International human rights standards, treaties and related guidance on social security, set out requirements for benefits to be adequate. Germany’s own constitution describes it as “a social, federal state.” Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has also developed jurisprudence in the past 15 years on the Existenzminimum principle, or the minimum subsistence level required to live in dignity. The Existenzminimum principle requires the state to ensure that after fulfilling their tax obligations, taxpayers are left with at least enough of their earnings to cover their “necessary living expenses” and those of their family, including housing, food, clothing, hygiene, and health, and to guarantee a minimum level of participation in social, cultural, and political life. These two parts—meeting material needs and a guarantee of minimum participation—are interrelated and inseparable according to the Federal Constitutional Court.

At present, despite its considerable public spending on social security and efforts to legislate for improvements, the German social security system is falling short of international human rights and domestic standards by failing to guarantee adequate support to many low-income households in German so they can enjoy their social and economic rights including an adequate standard of living, with particularly negative impact on single-parent women-led households and older women receiving retirement pensions.

The German government – at all levels – has obligations to ensure that its social security system meets human rights standards. To the extent that Germany’s federal system devolves competencies to state and local administrations (for example in relation to school meal provision or subsidized public transport), both levels of government share that obligation, and the federal government should coordinate information sharing, foster the development of good practices, and support efforts by state and local governments to improve economic and social rights protections.

Once the new German government is formed it should clarify through an open and consultative process, that involves the participation of people affected by poverty, what the Existenzminimum principle means for social security benefits, and ensure that all social security programs are sufficient to allow recipients to enjoy their human rights. The government should reverse punitive sanctions, which allow it to withhold Citizen’s Income payments for not meeting criteria including job-seeking, refrain from lowering the level of benefits provided under the new Citizen’s Income program and work quickly to ensure the child basic income legislation planned earlier is passed and enacted swiftly, with adequate levels of support for all children. The cost of inaction, or insufficient action is high: it means mothers continuing to skip meals so their children can eat and older people relying on food aid from charities to avoid going hungry.

The government should also consider—in whichever way is most appropriate within Germany’s federal arrangement—speeding up the implementation of legislation standardizing school days; increasing free school lunch provision; reinstating public health subsidies for older people to access eyeglasses, dentistry and mobility aids; and providing free access to public transport to recipients of low-income related social security measures or an age-related basic pension. The German government should commission an updated independent study examining the gender pension gap and consider implementing further measures to mitigate the negative structural impact of gender inequality on the lives of single mothers and older women facing poverty.

These actions are in line with the government’s pledges, are possible to realize given the maximum resources available to the German state, and should be a matter of priority. Given the levels of poverty, particularly among single-parent households (overwhelmingly women-led) and older people (disproportionately women), the new government should act decisively and not squander the opportunity to secure these key social and economic rights. A failure to act meaningfully would condemn more people, disproportionately women, to lives in poverty. It is within Germany’s grasp to ensure that every person can access adequate social security provision and have enough to afford what they need to live in dignity.

Recommendations

To the German Federal Government

• Engage in a transparent, public, consultative process about realigning social security benefits to its international human rights obligations and the constitutional Existenzminimum principle, seeking the involvement of people of all ages affected by poverty and others with relevant expertise;

• Ensure that everyone can access social security programs that provide adequate levels of support to guarantee recipients can enjoy their economic, social, and cultural rights, including access to food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living so that no one receiving such support is left below the official recognized monetary “at risk of poverty” threshold, including by:

  • Urgently reassessing the adequacy of the support provided under the Citizen’s Income (Bürgergeld), and committing to regular adjustments of the allowance thresholds for housing and utility costs and to implement increases swiftly where these are found to be necessary;

  • Bringing an end to sanctions under the Citizen’s Income system which could leave a recipient with an income below the poverty threshold or below the Existenzminimum;

  • Reinstating the 2023 Citizen’s Income bonus as a permanent feature of the Citizen’s Income;

  • Renew progress urgently on the draft law on basic child income (Kindergrundsicherung), increasing the amount of support provided and ensuring it is a universal benefit by removing eligibility exceptions for households claiming asylum benefits, and expediting its passage through parliament;

  • Urgently reviewing entitlement amounts provided under the basic old age pension (Grundrente) and revising the following:

    • years of contribution for eligibility;

    • criteria that may result in part-time workers, low-wage workers, and people who took career breaks or entered the German labor market later in life being ineligible;

    • the ratio of pension contribution credits for people who are caring for dependents.

  • Urgently committing to increase levels of support provided by the basic income support in older age (Grundsicherung) to ensure no one is left, at a minimum, below the monetary poverty threshold;

  • Take concrete steps to increase the take-up rate of the basic income support (Grundsicherung);

  • Working to ensure greater coverage of the workforce by the statutory pension (GRV, Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung) with particular attention to ensuring the inclusion of people in marginal forms of employment such as Minijobs and Midijobs.

• Commit publicly to not making changes to social security provision that could amount to retrogression under international human rights law;

• Simplify application processes for child-related social security benefits including the Kinderzuschlag and the Bildungspaket, and take other relevant steps to improve take-up rates of the Kinderzuschlag including by incorporating it into a plan for a basic child income (Kindergrundsicherung);

• Commission an independent gender equality impact assessment (in line with the Joint Rules of Procedure of the Federal Ministries, sections 2 and 44, paragraph 1) of social security support, including the operation of the points-based contributory pension system and care credits, assessing areas for improvement to ensure equality and following relevant recommendations of such a study;

• Commit to full implementation of the European Child Guarantee, including by providing federal funding to ensure one midday meal per child free of charge in every compulsory education setting in line with the European Child Guarantee, at the earliest possible opportunity, and no later than 2030;

  • federal authorities should immediately engage actively with all state governments and the culture ministers’ conference to fund and promote pilot projects for free meal provision in identified areas of high deprivation, in order to develop good practices in advance of the 2030 European Child Guarantee deadline.

• Report publicly and regularly on progress made to ensure full-day primary education and care, as planned from 2026 onwards, and to consider speeding up the process;

• Immediately enable working parents and all single parents to have eight hours of care for their children through standardized primary school eight-hour schedules or reliable after-school care, even before legislation extending school days gradually is in place;

• Ratify the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter Providing for a System for Collective Complaints (ETS No. 158);

• Fully accept all articles of the European Social Charter and withdraw the reservation regarding article 30 on the “right to protection against poverty and social exclusion;”

• Reinstate full coverage under public health insurance of the costs of eyeglasses, dentures and mobility aids for any older person receiving the Basic Pension Supplement;

• Take concrete steps to coordinate federal, state, and local agencies to develop free public transport for anyone receiving basic income support (Citizen’s Income or Basic Pension Supplement), building on the experience of the 2022-23 plans to introduce reduced or free public transport as a cost-of-living mitigation measure.

To the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and the UN Independent Expert on the Rights of Older People

• Consider a written communication to the German government highlighting concerns about inadequate social security support, including the effect of the gender pay and pension gaps, and reminding the government of its obligations under international human rights law;

• Urge the government to make progress on the stalled proposal for a Child Basic Income, and adopt concrete measures to improve child-related social security and alleviate child poverty; and

• Remind the government of its obligation to respect the principle of non-retrogression in relation to social security provision.

To the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

• Seek follow up information from the German government at the next available opportunity regarding concrete steps to address child poverty, inadequate social security support levels, and the greater risk of poverty and social exclusion experienced by children in single-parent families; and

• Seek information from the German government on its plans with respect to a proposal for a Child Basic Income.

To the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

• Maintain attention to the issues of the gender pay gap, gender pension gap, and gendered dimensions of poverty and social exclusion in its next examination of Germany’s record under the CEDAW;

• Use the next available opportunity to seek clarification from the German government about steps taken to address the gender pay and gender pension gaps.

To the European Committee of Social Rights

• Address the issue of adequacy of social security benefits in relation to the Citizen’s Income, universal child benefit, and basic age-related pensions at the next available opportunity;

• Call on the German government not to take retrogressive measures in relation to social security provision;

• Urge the government to make progress on the stalled proposal for a Child Basic Income, and adopt concrete measures to improve child-related social security and alleviate child poverty;

• Encourage the German state to withdraw its reservations to the revised European Social Charter (1996) and to ratify the Additional Protocol (ETS No. 158) permitting collective complaints to the European Committee of Social Rights.

Methodology

This research is the second in a series of Human Rights Watch investigations in Europe into people’s rights to an adequate standard of living and to social security. The research takes place against a backdrop of rapid increases in the cost-of-living experienced in Europe and globally between 2021 and 2023.[6] The overall objective is to assess the adequacy of social security provisions for single-parent families and older people in Germany. Specifically, we identify a set of programs that—even when considered together—fall short of providing adequate support to ensure an adequate standard of living, and set out recommendations for Germany to meet its human rights obligations with regards to economic, social and cultural rights, including on some of the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic and ongoing global inflation. The research is complementary to a broader advocacy effort by Human Rights Watch with partner organizations to increase awareness of and respect for the right to social security.[7]

The concept of adequacy in this report follows the human rights obligations outlined in human rights instruments as interpreted by authoritative bodies such as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in their General Comment No. 19, and the International Labour Organization in Recommendation No. 202, which emphasizes that cash and in-kind benefits should, at the minimum, provide protection against economic insecurity and poverty.[8]

Between May 2022 and June 2023, Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth in person and online interviews with 32 people experiencing poverty or life on a low income in Germany. Of these, 18 were single parents and 10 were recipients of age-related retirement pensions. Additionally, the research included shorter interviews with approximately 30 people in queues at two food banks affiliated with the Tafel food bank network and one independent food distribution center, as well as three group discussions of between 5 and 10 people, primarily with single parents. Human Rights Watch also interviewed around 20 staff or volunteers in NGOs, community groups, anti-poverty networks and food banks. Interviewees were based in the German states of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, North-Rhine Westphalia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Schleswig-Holstein.

The research also included analysis of data available through official statistics, and extensive consultation of secondary sources.

Interviewees with experience of poverty or life on a low income were identified either directly by local community organizations working on social issues or through responses to an online questionnaire designed by Human Rights Watch and shared via those organizations. Human Rights Watch asked questions about cost of living, adequacy of social security support, and food and energy insecurity, and invited participants to leave their contact details to be interviewed. Human Rights Watch then conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of respondents.

Interviews were conducted primarily in German (with interpretation), with a few exceptions where interviewees were comfortable speaking in English. The names of all interviewees providing testimony about their personal experience of the German social security system have been changed to protect their privacy.

Human Rights Watch did not offer compensation to any interviewees or survey respondents, but did reimburse reasonable travel expenses and childcare costs to ensure that the interviewee would not be financially disadvantaged by taking part in the interview.

Information in this report was last updated on February 25, 2025.

Government Response to Findings

In January 2025, in light of the federal election the following month, Human Rights Watch contacted senior civil servants in the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS, Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales), the Federal Ministry for Families, Older People, Women and Young People (BMFSFJ, Bundesministerium für Families, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend), and the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF, Bundesministerium für Finanzen), with a written summary of our findings and detailed questions for each body.[9] At this writing, the Federal Ministry for Families, Older People, Women and Young People and the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs had provided a substantive response.[10] The official responses are summarized here, and copies of communications are held on file.[11]

Poverty Threshold

Both the BMAS and BMFSFJ responses took issue with Human Rights Watch’s interpretation of the poverty threshold data as presented in German official statistics, stating that the at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate “does not measure poverty,” and is “a statistical measure of income distribution” which “does not provide any information about individual needs”. Both departments stated that “the indicator is very volatile, particularly for subpopulations, and it can vary depending on data source used,” and the BMFSFJ noted additionally that “poverty is a complex and multilayered phenomenon that defies clear and simple measurement.”

Eurostat defines the monetary poverty as follows: “People are considered at risk of monetary poverty when their equivalized disposable income (after social transfers) is below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. This is set at 60 percent of the national median equivalized disposable income after social transfers.”[12] While this measure does not account for the intensity of poverty, individual circumstances, or other factors such as work intensity or deprivation, when assessing social security income, Human Rights Watch considers an agreed measure of monetary poverty threshold which is used across the EU to be a relevant point of comparison.

Minimum Subsistence Level

The response from the BMAS said: “The minimum social security benefits cover all necessary living expenses for those in financial need.” The BMAS response cited Articles 1(1) and 20 of Germany’s Basic Law and related Constitutional Court jurisprudence as “decisive” in guiding its development of the principle of needs coverage (Bedarfsdeckungsgrundsatz) and minimum levels of social security benefits to ensure human dignity, with supplements available based on age, life and household circumstances. The ministry added that “this concept […] means that there is no monetary poverty threshold set by the federal government in Germany.”

Human Rights Watch used monetary poverty data in its report, as presented by Destatis, the German Federal Statistical Office, using the terms “monetary poverty” (monetäre Armut) and “risk of poverty threshold” (Armutsgefährdungschwelle).[13]

The BMAS explained the procedural steps it takes to consider compatibility with European law and international treaties during legislation, and during regular reviews by UN and European treaty monitoring committees, and that it had last updated its determination of “standard needs” in 2021, based on the 2018 income and consumption survey.

The BMFSFJ replied that the calculation of the minimum subsistence level was the responsibility of the BMAS, but noted that “the calculation method has been criticized both by associations and academics,” and said it recognized “a particular need to modernize” aspects of household expenditure calculation relating to children last set more than 20 years ago.

Single Parents, Working Mothers, and Women’s Participation in the Workforce

The BMAS acknowledged that while the employment rate for women had increased between 2014 and 2023, two thirds of all working mothers still work part-time. In its response, the BMAS outlined steps to address this, including reducing social security contribution rates for low earners without reducing social protection, including pension entitlement; specific support for low-skilled women with “migration experience” (Migrationserfahrung) to enter the labor market; and gender-specific target management for job centers with “the aim being to tackle gender-related disadvantages.” 

The BMFSFJ referred to the 10^th Family Report published in January 2025, and said it supported standardizing and materially improving support to single parents, including converting existing tax relief for single parents to tax credit. The ministry said that requirement to file recurring applications for supplemental benefits at regular intervals could not be avoided. Despite these requirements, it noted increased take-up rates of the supplemental child allowance since 2022. The ministry noted that its research showed that although the increased risk of poverty for mothers after separation or divorce, risk factors can exist prior to the break-up of relationships, and that it was working to address “a fair division of care and family tasks and paid work from the very beginning.”

Child Poverty

The BMFSFJ stated that the draft law it proposed during the previous legislative period on a universal child basic income (Kindergrundsicherung) would not proceed following the dissolution of parliament. It noted existing increases in child-related support under the Citizen’s Income and for asylum-seekers. The ministry also explained that Germany’s federal arrangement means that school meals are the responsibility of state governments, leading to a “fragmented and varied implementation of school meal programs with various barriers.” Notwithstanding these difficulties, the ministry said it was providing funding to states to expand full-day schooling, and to limited number of kindergartens, schools and extracurricular organizations for nutrition and counselling.

Pensions and the Situation of Older Women

The BMFSFJ acknowledged that despite mitigating measures introduced since 1992 to improve the recognition of periods of child-raising and care, gender pay and pension gaps persisted. It referred to the federal government’s intention to transpose the EU Pay Transparency Directive (2023/970) into domestic law and the existence of regulations under the Federal Equal Opportunities Act, but did not provide a specific timeframe for transposition.

The BMAS response made reference to the fact that child-raising periods are factored into pension calculations, and asserted that the proportion of older men and older women (aged 65 and over) receiving basic income or reduced-earning-capacity pension (Erwerbsminderungsrente (EM-Rente)) was roughly the same, and a low proportion of the age group (3.9 and 3.8 percent of all people, aged 65 and over respectively) especially when compared with the proportion of “working age” population receiving these benefits.

Official data reviewed by Human Rights Watch shows that monthly pension payments equate to incomes less than €1,000 a month for 38.2 percent of women aged 65 and older, compared to 14.7 percent of men the same age, which indicate the gender income differential is far more significant than the BMAS response suggests.

Sanctions and the Bonus Payment under the Citizen’s Income

The BMAS response provided a detailed response on how sanctions are applied to people receiving the Citizen’s Income under the “refusal to work” rule in effect since March 2024, arguing that it only applies to those who “without reason refuse to accept a reasonable job,” The ministry asserts that “[w]ork that has a negative impact on childcare is not considered reasonable…” and therefore refusal to accept such work would not be sanctionable. It added that benefits for family members, heating and accommodation are not affected by the suspension and that there is an exception to the sanction where applying would cause “exceptional hardship.”

Human Rights Watch requested copies of guidance to social security decision-makers on how to apply the criteria of “reasonable” job, “exceptional hardship,” and any specific guidance on not exacerbating structural gender discrimination. The ministry’s response summarized its approach as above but did not provide these documents.

The BMAS noted that the repeal of the €75 monthly bonus for Citizen’s Income recipients who engaged in vocational training was a decision based on the need to consolidate the federal budget.

Defining and Measuring Adequacy

This report uses the threshold set by Eurostat (the EU’s statistical authority) to calculate the at-risk-of-poverty (AROP) rate as a benchmark to assess whether social security benefits provide a minimum adequate standard of living.[14] Eurostat sets the AROP threshold at 60 percent of the national median equivalized disposable net income (including social transfers). This monetary threshold is used by the EU to measure relative poverty and is incorporated into a broader, multidimensional measure of poverty known as AROPE (At Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion). AROPE considers income poverty alongside factors like material deprivation and work intensity.

For the purposes of this report, the focus is specifically on the AROP rate, or the monetary poverty threshold, rather than the broader multidimensional aspects of poverty. To assess the adequacy of social security, we compare the AROP threshold to the benefit provided. For households receiving multiple entitlements, we consider the total sum of benefits in relation to the AROP. In assessing the Citizen’s Income, which is complemented with reimbursements for housing and heating costs, we use a housing adjusted AROP threshold developed by Der Paritätische.[15] This adjusted threshold deducts housing-related costs, including heating expenses, from a household’s income, allowing a more accurate comparison between social security programs that cover housing expenses and poverty thresholds.

Our analysis draws from interview data and benefit thresholds. Since the AROP threshold is based on a net income, we adjusted interviewees’ incomes by deducting taxes from labor and pension income (other social security benefits such as child benefit, or Kindergeld, or Citizen’s Income, or Bürgergeld, are generally tax exempt). For estimating tax deductions, we used the Brutto-Netto Calculator from the German Sparkasse and triangulated estimates using the calculator from the Federal Ministry of Finance.[16]

The at-risk-of-poverty threshold in Germany varies depending on household size and composition. In 2023, according to Destatis, the German Federal Statistical Office, the threshold for a single-person household was EUR 1,314 per month, and increased thereafter depending on household size and composition.[17]

Table 1. At-Risk-of-Poverty Thresholds in Germany, by Household Type, Before and After Housing Costs (2023)

Key Social Security Programs

Social security encompasses a range of programs, whether funded from direct contributions, usually from workers (and referred to as contributory programs) or through general taxation (referred to as non-contributory programs), that are intended to shield individuals from income insecurity, premised on the principle that everyone should enjoy their rights at every stage of their lives. Chapter IV sets out the international human rights law at various levels—under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, other UN treaties, the European Social Charter, International Labour Organization conventions and recommendations—and German domestic law relating to the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living in summary.

This report specifically examines the inadequacy of social security benefits for single-parent families and older people, with a particular focus on women. It analyzes key 14 social security programs, both contributory and non-contributory.

Table 2. Relevant Social Security Programs

These social security programs are described in greater detail as they appear in the report text and are also collated in an annex to the report for readers who may be previously unfamiliar with the German social security system.

I. Social Security Restructuring, Low-Wage Work and Complex Child-Related Benefit Programs

This report first documents poverty and financial strain in households with children, particularly families led by single parents of which 82.3 percent are women-led, before turning its attention in Chapters III and IV to hardship faced by older people, with women again disproportionately affected.[18]

Despite having arguably the world’s most long-established model of a modern welfare state, and the largest economy in the European Union, Germany’s social security system fails to secure an adequate standard of living for a significant part of the population. Even though Germany spent just over a fifth of its annual gross domestic product (estimated at 3.6 trillion euros) on social security programs in 2021, some 17.3 million people, or just over a fifth of the population, were affected by poverty and social exclusion.[19] By 2024, that number had increased to 17.6 million people, but it remained the same as a proportion of the total population.[20]

The causes of persistent and growing poverty in certain parts of the population are complex. Social security is not a cure for all the causes of poverty, which engages public services, labor rights, fair wages, education, and other key policies. But there are evident deficiencies in the social security system which can be fixed to improve living conditions and the enjoyment of rights.

For households with adults who are yet not eligible for retirement pensions, particularly women-led single-parent families, there are many factors that contribute to financial strain including: reforms to unemployment benefits since 2005; inadequate levels of social security support for both working and unemployed people including limited access to means-tested supplemental child benefits for low-wage earners; the growth of a low-wage economy in recent decades; gaps in the health care system; and insufficient availability of free early childhood education.

Moreover, unpaid care work perpetuates gender and economic inequalities, which in turn perpetuate the poverty trap. Even though it lays the foundation for a thriving society, unpaid and underpaid care work is fundamentally invisible. It is often treated as “non-work,” with spending on it treated as a cost rather than an investment.[21]

This combination of a vast precarious low-wage sector, insufficient public services, and inadequate social security benefit levels means people’s economic and social rights are not met, and those seeking to access social security can sometimes face onerous and hard-to-navigate documentary requirements.[22] As of 2025, authorities had failed to put in place measures that could materially change the situation. Measures adopted or proposed by the then-government prior to the February 2025 elections, such as a meaningful replacement of Germany’s unemployment benefit system with a substantively different Citizen’s Income program, or implementation of a new universal child benefit, had fallen short or stalled by the time of the election. The result is that too many households continue to experience poverty and social exclusion.

From the “Hartz Reforms” to Citizen’s Income (Bürgergeld)

The “Hartz reforms” formed a key plank of center-left Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s broader “Agenda 2010” economic reform package, implemented during his term in office (1998-2005), and then remained in place through the center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel (2005-2021).[23] Schröder’s drastic root-and-branch labor market overhaul involved cuts to welfare spending, the creation of short-term “midi-jobs” and tax-exempt “mini-jobs,” and a wholescale restructuring of unemployment benefits towards a “work first” or “activation” approach.[24]

The “Hartz IV” Unemployment Benefit

The Arbeitslosengeld I (ALG I) provides qualifying recipients a proportion of their most recent income prior to unemployment, for a period that depends on the recipient’s age and how long they were previously employed. For example, someone who was employed for 24 months can, at time of writing, receive ALG I for up to 12 months.[25]

The major reform to social security in 2005, was the introduction of a new, second type of unemployment benefit called Arbeitslosengeld II (ALG II, referred to colloquially as “Hartz IV”). After an individual’s period of eligibility for ALG I lapsed, they could apply for the ALG II or ‘Hartz IV’ benefit, a lower but permanent benefit with set rates, and a strict conditionality regime. ALG II ceased to exist at the end of 2022, when it was replaced by the Citizen’s Income (described below in this chapter).

The Hartz IV reforms reduced the period during which an unemployed person could claim an insurance-based unemployment benefit, consolidated and reduced levels of previously existing types of unemployment and social support, and introduced stricter means-testing for eligibility as well as strict conditionalities that allowed authorities to refuse social security support to claimants who did not comply with their job-seeking obligations.[26]

The government also provides two types of social protection to people in cases of long-term illness or disability: Krankengeld (sickness benefit, paid from public health insurance) and Erwerbsminderungsrente (reduced-capacity-earning pension).[27]

Diakonie Deutschland, the nonprofit organization representing German Protestant churches, the German Institute for Human Rights, and the National Poverty Conference, an alliance of German anti-poverty organizations including the active participation of people affected by poverty, have all stressed the need to ensure that social security benefits are sufficient to safeguard their rights, and that conditionalities, also referred to as sanctions, never leave claimants below a minimum subsistence level (see Chapter V of this report for a fuller discussion of the German domestic law concept of Existenzminimum, or “minimum subsistence level”).[28]

Some analysts characterize the Hartz reforms, and the development of “Hartz IV” in particular, as having turned into a “working poor trap,” as it effectively subsidized lower wages for more precarious work.[29] Germany’s relatively swift recovery from the 2007-8 financial crises, often attributed to the labor market reforms by their proponents, came at a high social cost, with low wages for many, and increasing economic inequality.[30]

A Growing Low-Wage Economy

Around 5 million people in Germany, accounting for almost a tenth of working people, were in precarious temporary work schemes (generally referred to in Germany as mini-jobs and midi-jobs) in 2019.[31] Mini-jobs are marginal, temporary forms of employment where wages are exempt from social security contributions (and in some cases taxes), provided they either fall below an income threshold (at time of writing €538 per month) or within strict time limits (70 days per calendar year). Midi-jobs are marginal forms of employment, where income may range between €538-2,000, and social security contributions are payable at a reduced rate on a sliding scale.[32]

In 2011, women occupied almost two thirds of these low-paid mini-jobs, either as primary employment or a second job to supplement low-wage primary employment.[33] Official data analyzed by an employment and wage specialist, shows that the proliferation of mini-jobs meant the jobs women occupied were of low quality with low wages.[34] In fact, by 2022, data showed that although Germany had a high employment rate for women (78 percent), almost half employed (48.1 percent) worked part-time, and women made up 65 percent of the 3.8 million people in marginal mini- and midi-jobs.[35] The growth of part-time work in the low-wage sector has had a serious negative effect on single-parents, people with limited educational qualifications, people with disabilities and/or long-term health conditions, and women working part-time.[36] One analyst has characterized these related developments taken together as the “dark side” of the “glittering façade” of the Schröder government’s labor and social security reforms.[37]

The Citizen’s Income: “Hartz IV” Replaced or Repackaged?

In late 2021, the then-governing coalition’s agenda for government set out proposals to replace the “Hartz IV” unemployment benefit with the Bürgergeld, translated here as “Citizen’s Income.”[38] Implementation, which started in early 2023, has fallen far short of the original ambitions.[39]

Although a year-long moratorium on withholding social security payments to people considered not to have complied with job-seeking requirements was promised, the then-government only implemented a six-month period in which sanctions were significantly reduced but not prohibited altogether.[40] Job-seeking obligations under the Bürgergeld include a “duty to cooperate” and a “duty to report”.[41] In March 2024, the government ended a promising policy, introduced only nine months earlier, granting a €75 monthly “bonus” to Citizen’s Income claimants who had completed job-related training.[42]

In January 2024, around the same time as he announced an end to the Citizen’s Income “bonus,” the labor minister took aim at “laziness” (Faulheit) among benefit recipients, and announced plans to reintroduce “total sanctions” which would allow authorities to withhold up to the full amount of two months’ worth of Citizen’s Income payments (except the housing and heat components) from recipients who repeatedly refused job offers.[43]

As noted by Save the Children Germany, “total sanctions” have a punitive effect on other members of the household, including children; for example, withholding two months of a parent’s standard rate means €1,000 less for the household budget and for everyday expenses and activities necessary for a child or children’s well-being.[44] Legislation allowing the possibility of “total sanctions” in the Citizen’s Income system passed in March 2024. The legislation does give a social security decision maker discretion to not apply a “total sanction” in cases of “exceptional hardship,” (Außergewöhnliche Härte) .[45]

The Citizen’s Income is by far the largest of several social security programs in Germany that provide what is referred to as Mindestsicherung, or minimum income support. By the end of 2023, of 7.5 million people receiving some form of minimum income support, 5.5 million were recipients of the Citizen’s Income.[46]

The Adequacy of Standard Benefit Rates

The rate of the “Citizen’s Income” is set out in law in the Social Code Book II (Sozialgesetzbuch II, or SGB II) and is based on household size, composition, and any work-related income. In 2023, of the 5.5 million recipients of Citizen’s Income, 1.5 were children under 15 years of age. Among the remaining 4 million, roughly 20 percent were employed, 40 percent were unemployed but available for work, and the remaining 40 percent were not in the labor market due to caretaking responsibilities or participation in education, such as higher education.[47]

The standard benefit rate for those not working at the time of most of our interviews in 2023 was €502 per month for a single adult, and €1,198 for a single parent of two children, one aged under 6, and another aged between 7 and 14 (as an illustrative worked example of a single-parent household).[48] The “standard benefit” for those who are not working is expected to cover living expenses for subsistence, including “food, clothing, personal hygiene, household goods and household energy,” as well as facilitate “participation in social, cultural and political life.”[49] In reality, however, the standard benefit can fall short of providing enough money to cover these expenses, leading some households to struggle to pay for essential items such as food and electricity or other forms of energy, and in some instances may leave recipients well below the official monetary poverty threshold, even after accounting for other social assistance or subsidies provided for housing and electricity or other forms of energy.

The following table summarizes the rate of Citizen’s Income for people not earning income from paid employment for various household types in 2023 in relation to the “at risk of poverty” threshold. This comparison highlights the gap between the benefit provided and the monetary poverty line.

Table 3. Benefit to Poverty Gap for Households Exclusively Receiving Citizen’s Income Compared to Monetary At-Risk-of-Poverty Threshold, after Accounting for Housing Expenses (2023)

Citizen’s Income recipients are eligible to have their housing and heating costs covered by the state, up to maximum limits set by local authorities. To identify the poverty gap – the difference between the benefits provided and the poverty threshold – we use a housing-adjusted poverty threshold developed by Der Paritätische.[50] This threshold is based on the At-Risk-Of-Poverty (AROP) threshold, but with a key distinction: it deducts all housing related costs, including heating expenses, from a household’s income. By accounting for disposable income after housing costs, this provides a more accurate measure of available income and a clearer comparison between benefit levels and the poverty line.

However, despite provisions to cover housing expenses, many Citizen's Income recipients pay a share of their housing expenses, because housing costs often exceed the upper limits set by authorities. According to the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, in 2023, nearly 320,000 households receiving Citizen’s Income did not have their full housing costs covered. On average nationwide, they paid € 103 per month out of their own pockets.[51]

The Citizen’s Income is between 26 and 51 percent below the monetary poverty threshold for a single adult household.

While additional social security programs exist for Citizen’s Income recipients, such as reduced commuter costs, allowances for special dietary needs (e.g., for people with diabetes), or subsidies for school lunches – these measures do not necessarily ensure a living standard above the poverty line, particularly in the context of rising living costs.

Expert groups, backed by civil society organizations working on unemployment benefits and child poverty, continue to propose significant increases to existing levels of financial support to unemployed workers and families to ensure an adequate standard of living, but to date the Citizen’s Income falls well short of those targets.[52]

Experts also note, citing research by the Scientific Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture, that the current levels of Citizen’s Income cannot guarantee adequate nutrition as a key component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and have argued for a more robust statistical recalculation of standard benefit rates that allows for a healthy diet.[53]

The adequacy of a long-term benefit like the Citizen’s Income, or ALG II before it, is also contingent on safeguarding against the erosion of the benefit’s purchasing power.[54] This entails incorporating provisions in law and in practice that ensure the periodic adjustment of benefits in response to changes in living costs. Addressing the erosion of purchasing power has been particularly salient in recent years given the sharp price inflation during 2022 and into 2023, linked to the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. By 2023 the consumer price index had risen by 7.9 percent on average compared to 2021 (hitting a 10.4 percent increase in October 2022 when compared to the same month the prior year).[55] Food and energy prices were particularly affected, with a harsh effect on low-income households for which these items constitute a larger share of monthly expenditure. By the end of 2022, even once the inflationary trend had slowed, household energy prices were up 34.7 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, and food prices had risen 20.7 percent.[56]

In early 2022, the government increased standard benefit rates by less than 0.76 percent, while general price inflation had reached 3.9 percent in August 2021.[57] To the credit of the then-government, in recognition of the sharp inflation and the experience of low-income households, in 2023, when replacing ALG II with the Bürgergeld, it chose to increase standard rates by approximately 11 percent.[58] And again in 2024, the German government announced a 12 percent increase to Citizen’s Income rates, along with many other social security payments.[59] The government followed the 2024 increase, however, by announcing a benefit level freeze in 2025, and justifying it on the basis of its mathematical formula for calculating “standard rates,” and going so far as to say that only a legal protection against nominal-terms reduction prevented payments from decreasing.[60]

Table 4. Standard Citizen’s Income Benefit Rates, 2023–2025

Civil society organizations, both individually and collectively, decried the decision to freeze benefits, and drew attention to what they argued was a flawed statistical calculation model for benefit rates.[61] The decision to freeze benefit levels in 2025 effectively undid the progress made by the 2023 and 2024 increases to address the harm done by social security payment levels failing to keep pace with inflation in the prior period.

Social Security for Households with Children

According to official statistics, the percentage of Germany’s children estimated to live in households at risk of poverty and social exclusion effectively doubled from about 12 percent of all children in 2019 to 24 percent by 2022.[62] Official data published in 2022 (based on 2021 figures), show that close to a third of Germany’s single-parent households (33.2 percent) had an equivalized net household income of under €16,300 (including income from social security), and nearly another third (31.4 percent) had incomes between €16,300 and €22,000. Similarly among large families, defined as two adult households with more than three children, almost a third (30.2 percent) had a household income of under €16,300, and a further quarter (27.1 percent) had incomes between €16,300 and €22,000.[63] The most recent available official data, from 2023, for the income threshold below which a two adult and two child family (both under 14) would be considered at risk of poverty or social exclusion, was €33,108.[64] For single-parent and two adult households with three children, the corresponding income thresholds for risk of poverty or social exclusion were €29,952 and €37,836 respectively.[65]

A Complex Array of Child-Related Social Security Programs

The German federal state provides a complex array of child-related social security programs of which some are universal, and others are means-tested, requiring the periodic submission of income-related, and in some cases also asset-related, documents to ensure continuing eligibility.

The Kindergeld is a universal child benefit (€250 per child per month as of January 2023), provided for children up to age 18. For children who continue their education beyond the age of 18, such as in an apprenticeship or higher education, the child benefit can be extended until they reach 25 years of age.[66] Parents living on low incomes, depending on their circumstances, can apply for the Kinderzuschlag, a supplemental child allowance, and the Bildungspaket, which helps pay costs associated with education.[67]

Elterngeld is a parental benefit which varies in amount depending on income during the year preceding the child’s birth, available to all parents who provide care for their child or children full or part-time, during the child’s first 14 months.[68] Parents with higher earnings receive 65 percent, while those with lower incomes (below €1,000 per month) may receive up to 100 percent of their previous earnings. The Elterngeld ranges from €300 to €1,800 per month.[69]

Three other forms of support are of particular relevance to single parents. Some single parents may qualify, based on assessing need and living situation, for social assistance (Sozialhilfe), which varies in amount depending on the number of children and ages.[70] In instances where one parent responsible for making state-regulated minimum child maintenance payments (Unterhalt) does not or cannot pay the other parent (the social security system can provide a ‘child maintenance advance’ called the Unterhaltsvorschuss to the parent with whom the child lives.[71] A form of tax relief is also available to single parents.[72]

Additional forms of support may exist at the state or municipal level, for example small grants to help buy a laptop required for school or free or reduced-cost transport for children (either universal and solely based on age, or means-tested).

Some people, irrespective of whether they have children, receiving one or more forms of social security described above may also be eligible for a means-tested housing allowance, called Wohngeld, and assistance towards paying for heating costs, called Heizkostenzuschuss.[73]

In 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the German government, as part of a national child poverty strategy “to address the root causes of child poverty and ensure that all children have an adequate standard of living,” and further specified that any such strategy “should encompass a reform of social benefits based on an adequate subsistence level and a stronger method of calculation that takes into account other factors contributing to eligibility”.[74] The Committee drew particular attention to the situation facing single parent families, among other situations of children in disadvantaged families.[75]

In addition to the concerns around the adequacy of key benefits, the sheer array and complexity of benefits, can itself cause problems for people trying to access them, and may contribute to high non-take-up rates. The application processes for these benefits sometimes have burdensome documentary requirements; some states have online applications processes for some or all benefits they administer, while other do not. Some types of benefit applications can only be completed in a specific order, for example, once another type of benefit has been applied for and granted, or alternately where other types of benefit have been applied for and refused or were refused for a prior period. One means-tested benefit—the supplemental child allowance (Kinderzuschlag)—requires a renewed application every 6 months, with a requirement in many cases to provide the same documentary information with each application. Such hurdles contribute significantly to the non-take up of benefits, which is particularly pronounced in the case of the supplemental child allowance. A study by the German Youth Institute found that up to 70 percent of eligible households do not claim this benefit.[76]

Stalled Proposals for a New Universal Child Basic Income (Kindergrundsicherung)

The traffic light coalition government (referred to as such because of the traditional red, yellow and green colors of the Social Democrat, Green, and Liberal/Free Democrat parties that formed it) began promisingly when it first took office in December 2021, by taking steps to establish a new, streamlined cash benefit for households with children, characterizing its implementation as “a major project for the federal government and all its supporting parties.”[77] The federal minister for families, older people, women and young people proposed a draft law in September 2023 to establish a universal child basic income (Kindergrundsicherung), specifically noting the importance of coordinated state action to tackle child poverty and reducing bureaucratic hurdles and complexity in application processes.[78] The federal cabinet green-lit the proposal the same month, pledging to have legislation in place to implement the policy by January 2025.[79]

The proposal, however, was hamstrung from the outset, largely as a result of disputes about its scope and purpose between parties that formed the governing coalition at the time. The basic child income proposed in the draft law did not substantially change the way standard benefit rates are calculated, and excluded families with children in receipt of asylum-related benefits.[80] An August 2023 report from the Diakonie Deutschland and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Econ) argued that in order to have its stated effect on child poverty, the planned budget needed to increase from 12 to 20 billion euro.[81] The Diakonie-DIW Econ report also presented modelling showing the reduction in child poverty achievable by increasing child-related transfers by 50 and 100 euros per month, with significant impact for single-parent households.[82] The coalition for a child basic income (Bündnis Kindergrundsicherung), a group of over 30 civil society organizations and social policy experts, has also called for higher child benefits to address poverty and also increasing inequality.[83] A wide variety of civil society actors and church organizations called on the government to ensure a proper recalculation of the long-criticized minimum subsistence rate.[84] Twenty of them jointly urged the government to include children from asylum-seeking families in the benefit, and ensure that children’s right to be free from poverty not be made secondary to migration policy objectives.[85]

Progress on the proposal was further impeded by broader budgetary pressures and persistent disagreement between parties in the governing coalition, prior to its collapse, on the idea of a universal child benefit.[86] At this writing, the legislation had stalled and whether a version of the proposal continues depends on the agenda of a future government.

A new, properly calculated, and well-funded universal Child Basic Income as a social security benefit would help households with children facing financial stress, especially given that not all such households are able to take full advantage of the available additional child-related means-tested programs which are available. It would help mitigate for the current difficulties with application processes for such benefits, rejected applications, and cases of non-take-up. A strong, inclusive Child Basic Income (Kindergrundsicherung) would also demonstrate commitment to Germany’s international human rights commitments, by responding directly and positively to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s 2022 concluding observations on the universal child benefit (Kindergeld). [87]

Other Structural Factors: Organization of School Day and School-Related Costs

For single mothers earning low incomes, the impact of balancing low-wage, often part-time work, childcare responsibilities, and the onerous process of applying for the gamut of child-related social security, can be wearing. Single parents who are unemployed or unable to work as a result of long-term illness and are receiving social security also face difficulties. The level of support is often inadequate, especially given the disproportionate impact on low-income households of surges in energy and food prices in 2022 and 2023.

In addition, structural factors such as the organization of the school day, costs associated with education, and widespread lack of free or low-cost school meals, have a gendered impact on single mothers, making it impossible for them to apply for certain jobs and straining their already limited income.[88]

Primary and secondary education in Germany is free of charge for all children in all German states until the age of 16.[89] However, families need to cover costs associated with school attendance (lunch, transport, school trips, and materials), with grants available under certain conditions to help families living on a low income or families who have children with disabilities.

In many states, the school day is limited to morning attendance, which may restrict parents (women generally, given societal norms) from participating fully in the labor market, earning a full-time wage, and paying fully into a retirement pension scheme.

In recognition of these challenges, in October 2021 the then-government passed federal legislation gradually increasing primary school provision to five eight-hour days per week per child between 2026 and 2030 and foresees federal funding to help states with implementation, and ensure greater uniformity and sharing of good practice.[90] 
 

II. “In a Hole I Can’t Climb Out Of”: Single-Parent Households Short of Essentials

Single-parent households in Germany are disproportionately affected by poverty. The 2024 “Poverty Report” by the Paritätische foundation finds that among the 1.7 million single parents, nearly 40 percent are estimated to live in income poverty, compared to 8 percent of two-parent families with one child and 30 percent of two-parent families with three or more children under the age of 18. Single mothers, who make up eight out of ten single parents, are particularly at risk. This situation is compounded by the fact that nearly half of all children in families receiving the Citizen’s Income (Bürgergeld) live with just one parent.[91]

Theresa A., 45, is a part-time kindergarten worker who lives in a rented, one-bedroom flat in the outskirts of Stuttgart (Baden-Württemberg) with her two children, aged 10 and 12. She has been a lone parent for eight years. One of her children has a developmental disability, which implies raised maintenance costs for the household. She explained her monthly income and expenses down to the penny in an interview with Human Rights Watch.

Theresa A. receives a net income totaling between €2,200 and €2,500 each month from her part-time job, universal child benefit, supplemental child allowance from the state, and child maintenance paid by the children’s father. Her application for housing benefit was pending a decision for six months at the time of interview. Theresa A. believes her older child is also entitled to more child maintenance from the child’s father since turning 12, but she would need to begin a claim at the Youth Welfare Office, which she had not found time to do between balancing part-time work and care responsibilities. Theresa A.’s application to local authorities for cash support (through the Kinderzuschlag) to help pay for costs associated with school, transportation and extracurricular activities had also been recently rejected at the time of the interview. The rent she paid (including gas and garbage removal) was €950 a month at the time of interview, leaving her with an income of €1,250 to €1,550 each month after housing costs, sometimes significantly below the €1,626 poverty threshold after housing costs.

Theresa A. explained that after paying for other utilities, children’s extracurriculars, and transportation, she is left with about €400-600 per month with which to pay for all food, hygiene, clothing, and other essential expenses for her family. But she often runs out of money by the end of the month, leaving her unable to pay for food, and may also face out of pocket medical costs like eyeglasses and orthodontic treatment for her children which are currently not covered by public healthcare. Because of her work and childcare schedule, she also cannot spare the hours it often requires to queue for food packages at the nearest charitable food bank. She explained the impact on her of being unable to pay for food, as well as other essentials for her children. She said:

I don’t look at my account as we reach the end of the month any more … it’s a coping mechanism. It feels like shit. I feel like I’m sitting in a hole that I can’t climb out of. I can’t help myself. I can’t get more hours of work because the kids need care or therapy. What can I do?[92]

Theresa A.’s situation was typical of many heads of single-parent households interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Single mothers in either full or part-time work described an endless battle to support families with their low monthly wages and social security support, and being forced to ration or forgo basic necessities to provide for their children. Like Theresa A., most heads of single-parent households work – 71 percent of single mothers and 87 percent of single fathers.[93] For single parents, and mothers in particular, earning low incomes, the impact of balancing low-wage, often part-time work, childcare responsibilities, ensuring the correct level of child maintenance payments, and the onerous process of applying for the gamut of child-related social security, can be wearing.[94]

At the time of our interview, Maggie D., a 36-year-old single mother of a young child, had been working a 30-hour a week maintenance job for five months. Her monthly income was €1,930, after earning €1,368 in wages and receiving €250 in child benefit and €312 in child maintenance from her former partner. Her application for a housing benefit had been pending for several months, and her application for supplemental child allowance had been denied. The local authority was helping subsidize the cost of her child’s full day kindergarten, but not the cost of lunch at the kindergarten.

After deducting taxes and social security contributions from her wage, she was left with about €1,700 per month in net income. Her rent for the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her child was €600, leaving her with €1,100 after housing costs, well below the housing-adjusted monetary poverty threshold for a single parent with one child (€1,321).  

Maggie D. went through her carefully organized accounts and monthly budget document during the interview, setting out how there is no margin for error particularly as the end of each month approaches. She told us:

I find myself questioning at the end of the month why I go to work, why things seem so unfair. I'm a professional, I get up every morning, I'm not unintelligent, and yet I find myself struggling to pay for things in the store. It's the overwhelming sense of unfairness that I can't reconcile … What happens if things get significantly worse? I worry about the future: will my child only be able to have oatmeal with water every morning?[95]

Maggie D. sleeps on the floor in the main room (living room/kitchen/dining room) of her one-bedroom apartment, and only heats this room when her child comes home from kindergarten. She turns on the heat in the bedroom, where her child sleeps to ensure they do so comfortably. She hoped that their financial and living situation would improve with her new job.

Interviewees receiving the Citizen’s Income (and the ALG II previously) reported that, even when supplemented by other disability and child-related benefits, it was insufficient to pay for essentials. Kaja M., 46, is an anti-poverty activist and writer, who lives with her 10-year-old daughter in rented accommodation in a town in Schleswig-Holstein. She receives a disability benefit, topped up with the Citizen’s Income (ALG II prior to January 2023), and the universal child benefit. She also receives support from the local government with housing costs, her gas bill, and some costs (but not lunch) associated with her daughter’s schooling. Her total combined monthly income from social security payments was €934. Even accounting for the fact that the local authority pays the full rent costs for Kaja M. and her daughter’s apartment, this income leaves them significantly below the €1,524 housing-adjusted poverty threshold. Kaja M. explained that she regularly cuts back on certain foods —vegetables, dairy, and eggs—and collects food from her local Tafel food bank every week or two.[96]

Lisbeth C., 43, is a single mother of three who works two jobs—as an office receptionist and as a home-based call-center worker—in rural Saxony. One of her children has a medical condition which sometimes causes them to miss school and has in the past required hospitalization. In addition to her wages from her two jobs, Lisbeth C. receives the universal child benefit and paternal child maintenance payments but still has trouble making ends meet.

Last month, I had to manage with 10 euros in the final week of the month. That’s a distressing situation. I’ve already told my older children to collect “deposit bottles” they see on the street. We also gather waste paper in the neighborhood, and earn around 7 cents per kilo. Sometimes this helps me get through the last three or four days of the month, allowing me to buy a loaf of bread. It’s heartbreaking. I can’t afford to properly feed my children. It’s a bitter feeling when all we have at the end of the month is bread and butter. … It tears you apart… It’s overwhelming.[97]

Lisbeth C. explained that with rising food costs, she buys less food, they eat more white bread and potatoes, rarely eat salad or meat, and rely on a bakery that sells discount bread before 6 a.m. Lisbeth C. said she skips meals regularly, and sometimes makes do with the crusts of her youngest child’s sandwich and carrot peelings. During the interview, Lisbeth C. said her monthly income was too high for her children to receive free school meals, or for her youngest child to have a free kindergarten place (although she paid a discounted rate of €120 per month as a single parent). Her expenses were €350 each month for meals at the two older children’s school and the youngest child’s kindergarten. When asked what difference free school meal provision would make to her family, she said:

If I didn’t have to pay for the school meals, if I could reduce just that cost, and had the €350 to spend on the monthly food budget again, we could eat food with quality, we could eat salad, even apples or cheese. I could bake my children a cake.[98]

Poverty and negative experiences of mental health have a bidirectional causal relationship: poverty and systemic or structural marginalization often worsen mental health, and negative mental health worsens economic outcomes for individuals.[99] Most of the single parents interviewed described being worn down by the demands of managing on low incomes over long periods of time, particularly in cases where their physical and mental health was negatively impacted.[100]

Lisbeth C. described the impact on her mental health:

You end up sacrificing everything, your health, your sleep, your energy, and all your free time. In the end you feel like a machine. You function day after day, whether you’re running a fever of 40 degrees, feeling tired, or battling a migraine. You always have to function, there’s no other option. […] There’s no rest. Even if you have a rare two hours, you’re always thinking about what still needs to be done, what forms to fill out, or getting it done. You feel as if you’re disappearing, as if you no longer exist.[101]

Tamara I., 43, was a youth worker in a city in Saxony until 2022, when she became unable to work due to chronic physical pain and depression. Tamara I. has a teenage son and has been a single parent since her separation from the child’s father during the pregnancy. She receives the sickness benefit (Krankengeld) through public health insurance, the universal child benefit from the state, and paternal child maintenance. At the time we spoke with her, however, Tamara I. and her son had recently moved to a small apartment because she could no longer afford the previously higher rent and energy bills. Tamara I. described the sense of hopelessness that a career working on a low wage as a single parent with inadequate income from social security generates for her, compounding her depression, which in turn has a negative effect on how she experiences physical pain. Tamara I. said:

We are constantly cutting corners to get through the month. ... It's exhausting to always have to monitor every cent and hunt for the cheapest deals everywhere. It’s draining. It’s frustrating. I don't receive sufficient money at the start of the month.… When my son was younger, there was still some hope that we would manage. Now, his childhood is almost over, and the realization hits that we’ll probably never make it, and you get angry about it. And you don't see a moment of recovery for yourself either. This has made my illness worse.[102]

Tamara I. only heats her living room and her son’s bedroom when he is home and says she cannot afford to heat her own room. She noted missing out on a recent €300 energy grant for administrative reasons, because they were issued at a time between her being a salaried worker and when she started receiving her sickness benefit. 
 

III. Inadequate Pensions, Poverty Among Older People, and the Gender Pension Gap

Official data show that the percentage of people aged 65 and older at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE) increased from 11 percent in 2005 to 15.7 percent in 2019, the most pronounced increase of any age group.[103] By 2023, it had reached 20.6 percent, with one in five people aged 65 and older falling below the multidimensional AROPE threshold.[104]

The data also reveal a clear gender differential. More than 38 percent of all women receiving age-related pensions in 2021 were getting less than €1,000 per month (i.e. under €12,000 per year), compared to 14.7 percent of men receiving such pensions receiving such a low amount.[105] Even taking into account women with slightly higher pension incomes, more than two thirds (68 percent) of all women 65 and older were managing on an income of less than €1,500 per month.[106] In 2023, 22.8 percent of women aged 65 and older were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (using the multidimensional AROPE indicator), compared to 17.9 percent of men, and 20.6 percent of women aged 65 and older had incomes below the monetary poverty threshold, compared to 15.7 percent of men the same age.[107]

The gender disparity is largely attributable to a pensions system design which results in low pensions for people who have had lower wages, and historically undervalued periods interrupted by caring responsibilities, to which women are more often exposed.[108] A 2021 study carried out by the Federal Ministry for Families, Older People, Women, and Young People found the risk of poverty to be even more acute for women aged 80 and older when compared with their male counterparts.[109]

Public Pension Provisions for Older People

Like many countries, Germany has a complex pension system with public and private parts, made up of contributory programs with non-contributory supplemental programs. The primary program is the mandatory statutory contributory pension that most employees and employers must pay into. In addition, there are voluntary occupational pension schemes and voluntary private pensions designed to complement the statutory pension. For those whose pension income is deemed insufficient, a basic income scheme provides a top-up. Finally, a means-tested, non-contributory basic income scheme provides income to individuals who do not meet the contributory requirements of the statutory pension. Occupational, private, and civil service pensions fall outside the scope of this report.

Statutory Contributory Pension (Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung)

The statutory pension (GRV, Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung) requires employers and people who are employed (in most sectors) to contribute a fixed amount of their gross income towards the employee’s pension (18.6 percent in 2022, with half paid by the employer).[110] Self-employed individuals who are not required to contribute can voluntarily opt into the system. In 2023, 87.1 percent of people in employment and those normally registered as unemployed and receiving the jobseeker’s allowance were covered by the GRV.[111] Of the remaining 12.9 percent of people not covered by statutory pensions in 2023, 33 percent were self-employed. But nearly a quarter (23.5 percent) were presumed by the government’s official statistics agency to be “mainly persons in marginal employment”, which refers to jobs of short duration and employment relationships where the earnings do not exceed a legally defined maximum amount, such as minijobs.[112]

High coverage, however, does not indicate that levels of pension received are adequate. The standard contribution rate for people in stable, non-precarious employment is 18.6 percent of income, with half paid by the employee and half by the employer. However, low contributions or frequent interruptions to contributions can lead to a relatively low statutory pension in retirement. For example, individuals who primarily worked in minijobs – which often involve minimal or no pension contributions – may have little or no entitlement to a statutory pension, dramatically increasing their risk of poverty in older age.[113]

People who arrive as adults in Germany, with years worked elsewhere, and contribute fewer than the assumed average number of working years (currently 39.6 years) also receive smaller pensions.[114] The federal statistics agency has noted that “[l]ow contributions or many interruptions in paying the contributions may later result in relatively low statutory pensions.”[115]

Similarly, part-time workers or stay-at-home parents (women with caring responsibilities are over-represented in both groups) often do not contribute enough for the pension they receive to be adequate. To mitigate for this, however, the statutory pensions system allows parents to accrue pension credits during parental leave during the first three years after a child’s birth, and during up to a total of 10 additional years of providing child-rearing care, including periods on a lower income.[116]

Means-tested Basic Pension Supplement (Grundrente)

People 65 and older who meet certain eligibility requirements may also receive Grundrente (basic pension), a basic pension supplement paid since 2021 to people receiving the GRV who, for instance, had worked in low-wage sectors, or took time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities, resulting in a low statutory pension amount.[117] Eligibility and benefit amounts are automatically determined by the GRV, so individuals do not need to apply to receive the benefit.

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, about 1.1 million people receive the basic pension supplement.[118] At this writing, the supplement is about €86 per month, on average; in recognition of women’s structural disadvantage, slightly higher for women (€91) compared to men (€75).[119]

This supplement has qualifying criteria related to the contributory period and income thresholds. It requires at least 33 or 35 years of pension contribution (eligibility starts with 33 years, and the full amount can be received after 35 years), allowing for years caring for others or on sick pay. For instance, a woman who worked for 29 years and raised two children, without working during the caregiving period, would still qualify for the basic pension supplement. This is because three years of caregiving per child are credited towards the required pension period. As a result, she would accumulate the necessary 35 years, fulfilling the eligibility criteria for the full basic pension supplement, which she would receive at the marginally elevated rate for women (€91, rather than €75 per month).[120]

Moreover, for the years of contribution to be considered eligible, the person’s earnings must have been above 30 percent and below 80 percent of the median income in each contribution period, capturing individuals with low to medium earnings.[121] Since 30 percent is the minimum threshold, any income below this would not be counted for that year. For example, a person with minijobs would not qualify. In turn, someone who earned more than 80 percent of average earnings would also not be eligible for the supplement. For example, in 2023, the gross median annual income in Germany was around €59,094.[122] To qualify for the basic income supplement on retirement, an individual currently working would need to earn at least €17,728 annually (€1,477 per month), but less than €47,275 annually (€3,939 per month).

Although concerns around accessing social security are often distinct from questions of whether the levels of support are sufficient to ensure an adequate standard of living, they can sometimes be linked. The high threshold of contributory years and share of income paid required to access the Grundrente basic pension supplement may paradoxically exclude some of the people most at risk of poverty. People who have not contributed for the full 33 to 35 years, or who have done so at a reduced rate during some of those years, for a variety of reasons, including career breaks, childbearing and rearing, other caring responsibilities, or entry into the German labor force at a later age as a result of migration, or who paid in for the requisite period, but did so on a very low wage owing to low pay or part-time work—are much more likely to be excluded.[123] Most of these factors disproportionately impact women. Periods not counted towards eligibility include times of unemployment and in minijobs without pension contributions.

Basic Income Support in Older Age (Grundsicherung)

People aged 65 and older can also receive financial support through the Grundsicherung (basic income support), a means-tested, non-contributory social security program designed to help cover everyday expenses such as accommodation, heating, and healthcare.[124] This benefit is available to those who do not qualify for the GRV (statutory pension). In 2022, about 659,000 people aged 65 and older received the Basic Income Support.[125] In 2023, at the time of Human Rights Watch’s interviews, people whose total income was below €924 per month were advised to check if they were eligible for basic income support (since January 2024, the threshold has been raised to €1,062).[126]

The benefit is calculated as a flat rate estimated to cover everyday expenses, adjusted for an individual’s living situation, as outlined in the table below. In addition, actual housing costs, utilities, and heating expenses are included. After the expenses are estimated, any income is deducted to determine the final benefit amount. Individuals with assets above a certain threshold or with family members earning more than EUR 100,000 per year are not eligible.[127]

Table 5. Flat Rate for Basic Income Support by Living Situation

Take, for example, a 67-year-old woman living alone, paying €300 in monthly rent, €30 for heating, and €50 for other utilities. This person receives a widow’s pension of €325 and does not qualify for the GRV due to having contributed fewer than 33 years. Her daughter earns €30,000 per year, which falls below the €100,000 exclusion threshold.

Basic Income Support Calculation Euros (€)

Category 1 (Living Alone) 563

Rent 300

Heat 30

Utilities 50

Total expenses 943

Deduct widow’s pension 325

Total Benefit Received 618

To compare, the official monetary poverty threshold assumes that an individual with income below €1,314 per month, intended to cover all these expenses, lives in poverty.

Basic income support for older people, like some of the child-related social security benefits, has a very high non-take-up rate. The latest available official data from the Federal Ministry for Families, Older People, Women, and Young People suggests that as many as 60 per cent of those eligible for the support are not claiming it.[128]

In practice, social security provided through the basic pension supplement and the basic income support fail to protect individuals from experiencing monetary poverty, in part due to low take-up rates.

The Gender Gap at Work and in Retirement

The gender pay gap in Germany is stark, applies across almost all economic sectors, and is particularly pronounced in states of former West Germany.[129] Government data from 2022 show that although the gender pay gap has diminished slightly since 2015, it persists—on average women earn 18 percent less than men (19 percent in the former West and 7 percent in the former East).[130]

The official data show, women on average outlive men by five years, and also are likely to have accumulated less retirement income and net assets than men, due to work patterns, periods of leave, higher likelihood of employment in lower paid sectors, and unequal pay when employed in the same sector.[131] The data also show that women with children are far more likely than male counterparts to be in part-time employment, in part because of longstanding gender stereotypes particularly relating to the role of women in childrearing and the provision of care to relatives.[132] Only 36.4 percent of all working mothers were in full-time employment in 2021, whereas 92.7 percent of all working fathers were employed full-time; and roughly two thirds of all working mothers work part-time.[133] The data did not include a disaggregated figure for single parents.

As a result of these cumulative factors, the gender pension gap is even more acute than the gender pay gap. The official German data from 2023 bear this out clearly, with a gender pension gap between older men and women of 39.4 percent without survivor benefits (without pension received as a widow/er), and a 27.1 gap between older men and women receiving survivor benefits.[134] Germany’s pension gap also stands out when compared with other OECD countries. A 2021 analysis by the OECD of data from all its member states, showed the German gender pension gap across all groups as 31.7 percent, above the OECD average of 25.6 percent.[135]

Frida N., 72, from North-Rhine Westphalia, worked for about 35 years as a tax specialist until she retired in 2011. She explained:

I was chatting with a friend the other day who [jokingly] said to me, ‘[Frida], you made some wrong decisions along the way.’ I told him to go to hell. I realized later how I should have responded. I should have said my biggest ‘mistake’ was being born a woman. The second ‘wrong decision’ I made was to get married and have a child. Then to take care of my mother. Then to get sick. These are the ‘mistakes’ I made in my life. This view … that women do everything wrong and that’s why they receive so little money, it makes me want to explode.… Care work isn’t properly considered in terms of old-age social security, whether it’s caring for children, for parents, for a sick husband, for yourself, whomever. One only has what one has earned and paid in [when one retires], and that is bitterly little.[136]

Hilde C., 74, had a varied career working as an engineer, an environmentalist, and with a political party in state parliament (Landtag). A single mother for most of her working life, she had trouble finding a job in her fifties and began receiving unemployment benefit. When she turned 60 in 2009, concluding that she had been “structurally forced out of the labor market,” Hilde C. determined that it was preferable to accept a lower pension by retiring early than to manage on a jobseeker’s allowance. Hilde C. said she manages thanks to occasional gifts and the support of a local charity that gives older people grants for foreseeable but large expenses like dental work or hearing aids. She said, reflecting on the gender dimension of the pension gap:

There really needs to be some form of proper gender reparation to make the pension system fairer. When I worked as an engineer, I earned less than my male colleagues who didn’t have the university qualifications I had, so I paid less into the pension. When I had a child, I went on parental leave. I worked as a single mother; the company I was working in at the time was money-oriented, they didn’t like it, and they let me go. Later when I was ill myself and had to take care of my mother … I couldn’t get a job. Women get forced out of the labor market, and we have smaller pensions.[137]

In its most recent concluding observations on Germany, issued in 2023, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, called on the German government to strengthen action to close the gender pay gap, address gaps in remuneration of women during periods of care-giving and child-rearing in order to close the gender pension gap, and to strengthen the statutory pension to ensure retired women are guaranteed a decent standard of living.[138]

IV. “Losing My Sense of Worth”: The Impact of Low Pensions on Older Women

Sieglinde A., 71, was collecting a weekly food package from a food bank in the city she lives in North-Rhine Westphalia when she spoke with Human Rights Watch. Sieglinde A. explained that her pension was limited because she gave up her work as a dentist’s assistant after marrying her late husband. Though she took care of his business finances, Sieglinde A. was not paid a formal salary and did not pay into the statutory pension insurance mechanism (Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung, GRV) all those years; in the eyes of the state, she was effectively a homemaker who didn’t earn a wage, although she contributed directly to her husband’s business.

While Sieglinde A. did not qualify for the GRV statutory pension directly, she was eligible for Grundsicherung, the non-contributory basic income support scheme available to individuals aged 65 and older whose income and assets fall below a set threshold. Additionally, she qualified for a widow’s pension through the GRV, based on her late husband’s statutory pension contributions.

When we met with Sieglinde A., the monthly social security from the basic income support and the widow’s pension was €1,100 in gross income, and after paying rent and energy costs, she estimated she had €300 to spend each month for food and all other expenses. She said she relied on regular support from her daughter and food bank packages to manage. She said,

I’m a pensioner, and the support from the government simply isn’t enough. Life is expensive. At home I stay under a blanket and drink tea, coffee, or soup to stay warm. There’s not much else to do.[139]

Sieglinde A.’s pension falls well below the poverty line, as defined by Germany’s statistics bureau, which sets the at-risk-of-poverty threshold for single-person households at €1,314. With her net income approximately 28 percent below this threshold, Sieglinde’s situation highlights the inadequacy of Germany’s pension system and its implications for the rights of older people.

Sieglinde A.’s story is far from unique. Human Rights Watch interviewed 16 people, 12 of them women, either receiving retirement pensions or nearing the age of eligibility in four German cities (Duisburg, Bielefeld, Schwerin, and Munich) who also reported that they regularly visited a food bank or relied on other charitable food aid.

Older women living alone who spend many years either as homemakers raising children or working part-time to balance caring responsibilities, particularly in low-wage sectors or for informal work (such as imbiss snack bars, domestic cleaning, and supporting a spouse’s business), struggle to live on their retirement pension alone. However, Human Rights Watch also interviewed older women living with a partner and older women with long work experience whose retirement pensions fell well below the at-risk of poverty threshold. Many interviewees said they had great difficulty making the retirement pension stretch to cover basic goods, including food, access to which is guaranteed under human rights law, but also transport, health-related aids, and required household repairs.

Irmgard A., 88, worked as a homemaker raising her children and now lives alone in a rented apartment in a large city in Bavaria following her husband’s death. Her sole income comes from her pension and a widow’s pension, totaling just over €1,000 per month in gross income. After accounting for taxes, she is left with about €950 per month, that is 27.7 percent below the poverty threshold of €1,314 for a single adult.

Irmgard A. described how from her low pension she struggles to pay rent, utilities, and then have enough to cover food and clothing expenses:

If I had to live on what I receive, I wouldn’t be able to do it. But thank God, I am able to go to the food bank every Monday to get food and some other things.… I’ve been going to the food bank for four years, that’s a long time.… I get fruit, vegetables, potatoes, bread, yogurt, cheese, sometimes eggs, and even poultry or meat every once in a while. I can’t afford all that myself without the food bank, or I’d only be able to buy them very rarely. I can tell you for certain that I wouldn’t have money in my pocket for half the month if there was no food bank.”[140]

Frida N., 72, also receives a pension below the poverty line. She took early retirement in 2011 after having worked for around 35 years as a tax specialist, which made her eligible for the statutory GRV pension. Having worked part-time for many years while raising her son as a single mother, Frida N.’s monthly contributions were modest. As her statutory pension is low, she receives a top-up through the basic pension supplement, which together works out to €1,025 a month in gross earnings to cover all her expenses. After accounting for taxes, her income is about €972, which is about 26 percent below the €1,314 at-risk-of-poverty threshold for a single person household.

Frida N. described her indignation as a retired person receiving a pension income below the poverty threshold, even though she had worked and contributed to the social security system for more than three decades, as she witnessed food prices rise during the inflationary crisis of 2022 and 2023. She said:

I’ve seen the change in prices. I go to the same grocery store, and I buy the same things every time for my staples. Before the crisis, I could buy my usual basket with milk, eggs, bread, vegetable and fruit for €35. Now it’s €50. That’s a bit more than a 40 percent increase. And in the same time they’ve raised our pension between 3 and 5 percent. It’s ridiculous, laughable. I look at myself and I feel like I’m losing my dignity, and my sense of worth. I remember I used to stand in the supermarket, looking at pre-packaged noodle meals with vegetables, priced at €2 and change, and I would spin out one package to last me three meals. Every time I put them in my cart, I felt sick.[141]

Each year, the federal government adjusts pension rates, historically applying different increases for East and West Germany due to lower wages and pensions in the East. However, between 2021 and 2023 these adjustments repeatedly failed to keep pace with rising inflation, leaving many pensioners struggling to pay for everyday expenses. In 2024, for the first time, a common percentage increase, at a rate above the consumer price index, was applied across Germany.

Table 6. Annual Pension Adjustments, 2020–2024

The Tafel network of food banks has documented year-on-year increases in demand generally, and particularly among older people receiving pensions or basic income support in retirement.[142] The network reportedly estimated that one in four of the people receiving its food aid is an older person.[143]

The German government stated in a recent ad hoc report under the European Social Charter:

Charitable organisations and their services such as the food banks and soup kitchens … are not part of the state welfare system in Germany, but rather are independently run. Their services cannot and should not replace state services. In Germany, the welfare state does not rely on the services provided by independent organisations, but ensures that its minimum income benefits cover basic needs and guarantee a life in dignity even without these supplementary services.[144]

The reality of food banks exposes the hollowness of this stated official position. There is a tacit acceptance among food aid distributors, both Tafel-affiliated and independent providers, that people receiving the basic retirement pension or Basic Income Support (and in many cases those receiving the Citizen’s Income) should immediately be considered eligible for access to food aid.[145]

Thomas Doussier, from the Bielefeld food bank, showed Human Rights Watch a poster hanging in his office with the organization’s eligibility rules, linked simply to receiving social benefits like supplementary child benefits, housing benefits, a disability allowance, or a basic age-related pension.

It’s a shame that in a rich country like Germany that children are growing up poor, and pensioners are waiting here for food … I’d ask the politicians to come here or to another Tafel and work for a week, see who uses the Tafel and needs it, and not just come to take photos and look like they’re doing something nice.[146] 

Older people interviewed also referred to the stress caused by the costs of having to pay for foreseeable health-related expenses, including prescription eyeglasses, refitting dentures, and in some cases mobility aids (where not covered by public health insurance for disability). Three charities assisting older people on low incomes all referred during interviews to programs they have for emergency cash grants to help older people with unexpected costs, including for health-related expenses.[147] These charitable sources of support however are reliant on the generosity of donors, unevenly distributed around the country, not available to all older people in need, and should not become a normalized substitute for adequate social security or a properly funded health care system that ensures older people’s access to their right to health.

As part of the Schröder government’s policy agenda, legislation passed in 2003 to “modernize” the public health insurance system ended the previous policy of fully covering the costs of all types of prescriptions eyeglasses for adults (limiting such coverage to “severe visual impairments”), dentures, and mobility aids.[148] The law introduced a patient contribution for some prescriptions, limited to 2 percent of the person’s annual income. Many people on low pensions cannot afford to pay either for private insurance or out of pocket for prescription eyeglasses, basic mobility aids, and dentures.

Tülay E., 75, and her husband, Helmut E., 78, live in an apartment they rent from a housing cooperative (Genossenschaft) in a large city in Bavaria. They are both retired: Tülay E. had to stop working as manual laborer following a workplace injury when she was 48 and received a reduced-earning-capacity pension until she reached the age of eligibility for a retirement pension, and Helmut E. retired from his work in reprographics at 60. They estimated that their total monthly pension income was about €1,600 (gross) at the time of interview; her pension is less than half of his. For a two-adult household, the net at-risk-of-poverty threshold is €1,971, placing them about 29 percent below that threshold.

Their monthly rent was €866, their last monthly electric bill was €108, and they presented a long list of bank transactions detailing various monthly deductions for insurance payments (legal, death, dental, contribution to a grandchild’s health insurance) and other costs. They described being constantly overdrawn on their bank account and in debt. Tülay E. said:

It’s a mental burden. My dentures need to be replaced, and the total bill is €5,048. We still don’t know how much we will have to pay. The dental practice will send the bill to the [private] health insurance company, which will work out what they will cover and what we have to pay. We expect it will be around €1,300 and are waiting to find out.[149]

Tülay E. explained that foreseeable medical costs, like prescription eyeglasses, used to be paid for by public health insurance until around 20 years ago, and suggested that covering costs like these for older people managing on low fixed incomes would reduce financial uncertainty and worry, making their life easier.

Other older people and staff at charities supporting older people we spoke with noted that older people on low pension incomes do not automatically receive free transport, and emphasized the impact that high transport costs have on older people’s social engagement and participation.[150] A coordinated effort between federal, state, and municipal governments to ensure all recipients of a basic pension supplement are automatically eligible for free local public transport—building on work already done to offer reduced cost public transport during times of inflationary pressure in 2022 and 2023—would make a marked improvement in the standard of living for older people receiving low retirement pensions, and reduce barriers to social participation.
 

V. Germany’s Human Rights Obligations

The human rights to social security and to an adequate standard of living, both included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are enshrined in international human rights treaties to which Germany is a party.[151] Germany’s federal constitutional jurisprudence has also developed the concept of the minimum subsistence level (Existenzminimum), which provides complementary domestic constitutional protections in the context of social security.[152]

International Human Rights Law and Standards

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, (ICESCR), to which Germany has been a party since 1973, recognizes both the right to social security and to an adequate standard of living, both rights being interlinked.[153]

International Labour Organization (ILO) treaties and recommendations as well as European human rights instruments and policy recommendations provide further guidance on the right to social security.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)—the body of independent experts established to monitor implementation of the ICESCR—has provided authoritative guidance on the right to social security.[154]

The rights in the ICESCR apply in full during a crisis—for example, during a global pandemic or global inflationary pressures—and the covenant does not make provision for states to derogate from the rights protected therein.[155]  States have the obligation to use their maximum available resources at all times to meet the protected socioeconomic rights, with an inherent recognition that crisis situations may have an impact on available resources. The explicit priority is to use those resources to ensure the widest possible enjoyment of the core minimum obligations, subject to a prohibition on discrimination.[156] The CESCR has also underlined that “even in times of severe resources constraints the vulnerable members of society can and indeed must be protected by the adoption of relatively low-cost targeted programmes.”[157]

In a recent, positive step, in April 2023, Germany became a party to the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR (OP-ICESCR) which created a mechanism for individuals to submit claims to the committee that their covenant rights had been violated.[158] The development follows a longstanding campaign by domestic human rights organizations for German OP-ICESCR ratification.[159] As a result, individual petitioners are now able to take complaints against Germany to the CESCR, but given how recent the development is, no complaints had been brought at time of writing.[160]

Relevant UN Conventions

Under ICESCR, a social security system should provide coverage across at least nine branches: health care, sickness, old age, unemployment, employment injury, family and child support, maternity, disability, and survivors and orphans.[161] Moreover, it should provide benefits, in cash or in kind, that are adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize their rights.[162] The CESCR offers the following guidance on adequacy:

Benefits, whether in cash or in kind, must be adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize his or her rights to family protection and assistance, an adequate standard of living and adequate access to health care, as contained in articles 10, 11 and 12 of the Covenant.[163]

The CESCR has said that states are required to provide a minimum level of social security protection for those who need it and then progressively realize universal coverage and adequate levels of benefits over time.[164] The immediate obligation to provide a minimum essential level of benefits means providing assistance to individuals and families to enable them to acquire at least essential health care and an adequate standard of living, including basic shelter and housing, water and sanitation, foodstuffs, and the most basic forms of education.[165] 

The CESCR has made clear that states must also ensure that women enjoy at least equal social protection coverage as men, requiring them to eliminate barriers that prevent women accessing equal benefits,[166] and should take steps “to ensure that the social security systems cover those persons working in the informal economy.”[167] The CESCR has also underlined that “refugees, stateless persons and asylum-seekers, and other disadvantaged and marginalized individuals and groups, should enjoy equal treatment in access to non-contributory social security schemes.”[168]

The CESCR has said states should give the right to social security “sufficient recognition … within the national political and legal systems, preferably by way of legislative implementation” and develop a national strategy to fully implement the right.[169]

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) guarantee the right to social security for children, women, including older women, and people with disabilities, including older people with disabilities, respectively.[170]

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has offered important additional guidance to states on addressing structural gender discrimination in social security systems, including gender-based discrimination in work, the gender pension gap, and the disproportionate caring responsibility borne by women at various stages of their lives.[171] The Committee specifically emphasizes the importance of states ensuring that pensions are available in a nondiscriminatory manner to all women who have been active, including those who opt to retire early, and that older women should have equal access to men to an adequate non-contributory pension.[172]

Relevant ILO Instruments

The 1952 ILO Convention Concerning Minimum Standards of Social Security (Convention 102) sets out a legal or codified basis for social security and a guaranteed minimum standard of the various types of social security for a signatory state’s residents.[173] Convention 102 does not offer prescriptions for how a member state should reach its social security obligations, and leaves a degree of flexibility to each state, and allows states at different socioeconomic levels to plan their programs accordingly.[174]

The ILO’s 2012 Social Protection Floor Recommendation No. 202 explicitly recognizes social security as a human right and proposes that ILO member states establish a social protection floor that guarantees access to basic health care and income support for at least all residents and children, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.[175] It says states parties must fully respect the principles of human dignity, and non-discrimination. Of particular relevance to this report, the recommendation addresses basic income security for children, during people’s working lives, and for older people, all at a nationally defined minimum level.[176] 

ILO Recommendation No. 202 also urges states to continuously raise this basic protection to meet existing ILO standards, and to regularly assess the adequacy of benefits through a transparent legal process (see below in this chapter for further details on adequacy).

Relevant European Treaties, Instruments and Policy Frameworks

Council of Europe and European Union treaties—including the original European Social Charter, the Revised European Social Charter, European Code of Social Security and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights—contain specific obligations to guarantee “social security rights” or a “right to protection from poverty and social exclusion.”[177]

These principles have recently found expression in a renewed EU-wide commitment to strengthen the European Pillar of Social Rights at the Porto social summit, in May 2021. Although the Porto declaration that emerged out of the summit is not a legally binding instrument in and of itself, and at present the EU has limited powers in relation to national social security policy, the European Commission has characterized the declaration as a new “social rulebook.”[178] The Porto declaration included a clear commitment to developing a child poverty strategy, and in particular to implementing a European Child Guarantee, which sets out specific anti-poverty measures and policies. In 2021, the European Commission and Council, formally adopted a recommendation that requires member states to develop national action plans setting out how they plan to achieve the European Child Guarantee by 2030.[179]

Germany has accepted all three of the key documents relating to the Council of Europe’s European Code of Social Security.[180] The European Code—modeled largely on the ILO’s Convention 102, albeit with higher standards—sets out requirements on various social security benefits (sickness, unemployment, pension, disability, family, maternity, widow/er status), allowing states to be more generous based on their national policy, and subjects signatory states to an annual monitoring process.[181]

The European Committee of Social Rights, which is responsible for assessing compliance with the European Social Charter, raised concerns about the absence of a clear legally-defined minimum benefit level in Germany, and noted that Germany’s calculations were largely based on a “typical” contributor defined as a male employee earning 125% of the median income.[182] The Committee also noted that the German government had not provided adequate information on age-related pensions, particularly on the adequacy of non-contributory pensions, and as a result it could not find Germany to be compliant with article 12.1 of the 1961 European Social Charter.[183]

In 2021, when Germany finally ratified the revised European Social Charter (1996) it did so with reservations stating that it was not bound by several articles in the document, including article 30 requiring states to:

…take measures within the framework of an overall and co-ordinated approach to promote the effective access of persons who live or risk living in a situation of social exclusion or poverty, as well as their families, to, in particular, employment, housing, training, education, culture and social and medical assistance.[184]

As a result, it is not possible to enforce article 30 of the revised European Social Charter (1996) in relation to German law or policy.[185]

Germany has also refused to allow collective complaints about non-compliance with Charter rights to the European Committee on Social Rights. This incomplete adoption of the revised Charter curtails a crucial enforcement route for a person or group who believes the German state has violated rights guaranteed under the revised Charter.[186]

Adequate Social Security Support: International Guidance and the German Existenzminimum Principle

At the international level, the CESCR sets out clearly that social security benefits must be sufficient to allow for an adequate standard of living and access to health care:

Benefits, whether in cash or in kind, must be adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize his or her rights to family protection and assistance, an adequate standard of living and adequate access to health care.[187]

Similarly, ILO conventions and social security instruments also establish principles of adequacy of social security benefits, and state that regular monitoring of adequacy criteria is necessary to ensure that beneficiaries can pay for the goods and services necessary for the full enjoyment of their rights.[188]

ILO Recommendation No. 202 says that social security benefits should, at a minimum, guarantee effective access to essential health care and basic income security as defined at the national level.[189] In addition, international standards recognize that the determination of benefit levels should take into account the needs of the population, as well as the capacity to finance and deliver these benefits and services. Minimum benefit levels should enable access to essential goods and services required to fulfill economic, social, and cultural rights, and should be defined at the national (and sub-national) level, with the participation of beneficiaries. Taken together, cash and in-kind benefits should, at the minimum, provide protection against economic insecurity and poverty, and ensure a life in health and dignity.[190]

Regular monitoring of adequacy criteria is necessary to ensure that beneficiaries can pay for the goods and services necessary for the full enjoyment of their rights.

Adequacy in long-term benefits (e.g. pensions) is also contingent on safeguarding against the erosion of their purchasing power.[191] This entails incorporating provisions in law and in practice that ensure the periodic adjustment of benefits in response to changes in living costs.

These international principles find their domestic complement in the Existenzminimum principle (minimum subsistence level). Germany’s Constitutional court has developed through its jurisprudence the principle as an absolute right based on its interpretation of the concept of human dignity contained in the German Basic Law, or constitution, in combination with the welfare state principle of the same law.[192]

A key 2010 Federal Constitutional Court ruling sets out the right to a minimum subsistence level and obliges the German state to support those who lack the resources to fulfil their minimum needs. The German legislature is responsible for determining the specific amount required to fulfil a person's minimum needs, which it must do through a transparent and realistic assessment of necessary expenses in general, and an individualized approach to calculating each person’s needs.[193]

According to the right to a minimum subsistence level, anyone residing in Germany,[194] should have their basic material needs fulfilled, including housing, food, clothing, hygiene, and health. The right also requires the state to guarantee the possibility of maintaining interpersonal relationships and a minimum level of participation in social, cultural, and political life. These two parts—material needs and a guarantee of sufficiency to ensure participation—are interrelated and must be treated “uniformly and equally” according to the Federal Constitutional Court, meaning that the right to a minimum subsistence level is more than just a baseline minimum core obligation and requires more than quantifying a minimum benefit amount in monetary terms.[195]

Acknowledgments

Kartik Raj, senior researcher, and Klara Funke, former associate and research assistant, both in the Europe and Central Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, conducted the research and interviews for this report. Raj was the main author of the report. Funke’s contribution included designing a survey to identify interviewees, developing contacts with domestic organizations, and planning many of the interviews. Lena Simet, senior researcher and advocate in the Economic Justice and Rights Division provided key methodological guidance, developed the schematic categorization of German social security programs, and wrote some portions of the report.

The report was edited and reviewed by Judith Sunderland, associate director, and Benjamin Ward, deputy director, both in the Europe and Central Asia Division. Specialist reviewers included Simet, Matt McConnell, researcher, and Sylvain Aubry, deputy director, all in the Economic Justice and Rights Division; Bridget Sleap, senior researcher on the rights of older people, Carlos Ríos-Espinosa, associate director, and Jonas Bull, assistant researcher, all in the Disability Rights Division; Juliane Kippenberg, associate director in the Children’s Rights Division; Macarena Sáez, director of the Women’s Rights Division; and Friederike Mager, coordinator for EU advocacy in the Advocacy Department. Aisling Reidy, senior legal advisor, and Joseph Saunders, deputy program director, provided legal and programmatic reviews.

The research benefitted from the involvement and regular input of Wolfgang Büttner, former associate director, Advocacy and Communications, and Hillary Margolis, former senior researcher on women’s rights.

Lisa-Marie Maier, German media coordinator in the Communications department provided communications advice. Elida Vikić, senior coordinator in the Europe and Central Asia division, provided project management and production assistance. Caroline Montag and Xenia Kastner, former interns, and Marlene Auer, former associate, all in the Europe and Central Asia division, provided additional help with desk research, news monitoring, interpretation, and translation, at various stages of the project. Travis Carr, officer in the Digital department provided design and visuals. Sandra Kirsch translated the report into German. Auer provided additional editorial support with report references, and Montag vetted the German translation.

The lead author expresses his gratitude to the following four external experts for their engagement with the research. Dr. Andreas Aust, social policy expert at the Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband – Gesamtverband e.V., and Eric Großhaus, advocacy manager on child poverty and social inequality at Save the Children Deutschland e.V., provided external review of a report draft. Sarah Lincoln, lawyer and head of the Equal Rights and Social Participation Department in Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V. convened a panel of civil society experts working on social rights and poverty in Germany to discuss an early draft and provide collective input. The late Prof. Dr. Michael Krennerich, who directed the Center for Human Rights at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, offered importance guidance on Germany’s international commitments on economic and social rights.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank the players of Deutsche Postcode Lotterie for their generous support of this project.

Above all, Human Rights Watch expresses its thanks to each one of the people who spoke with us about their experience of life on a low income in Germany, and the many local organizations that facilitated contact with them.