Report on growing inequality: racism as a diversionary tactic

A year ago, Friedrich Merz sparked the cityscape debate with his racist statements. Union politicians are currently taking the same line when they problematise the “migrant milieu” after the riots on the sidelines of the Gen Z protests. Migration is not the problem that is afflicting society and is becoming more and more visible everywhere in Germany's cities. Instead, it is the ever-increasing gap between poverty and wealth that is evident everywhere.

Here there are people who collect bottles so as not to become homeless or because they are already homeless, there are expensive boutiques and chic restaurants where a bottle of wine can cost several hundred euros. In between there is often only a few meters and a public infrastructure that increasingly resembles a permanent construction site.

The current distribution report from the Economic and Social Sciences Institute (WSI) of the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation shows how much society is drifting apart. Accordingly, inequality in disposable income has increased again in recent years and has now reached the second highest level since 1992.

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According to the report, the proportion of households living in poverty has increased from less than 12 percent to more than 17 percent since the early 1990s. The proportion of those living in “severe poverty” almost doubled from 5.9 to 10.4 percent. These are single people who have to get by on less than 13,061 euros a year. At the same time, although the proportion of rich people has remained relatively constant, their incomes have risen much faster than those of the rest of the population.

So instead of naming growing inequality as the cause of social protests, the conservatives are once again pointing to young migrants. It is not the first time that they have relied on racism to distract from social problems. Otherwise they would have to address these problems instead of making them worse with their policies.