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Poverty in Germany is on the rise. All current empirical surveys record this ongoing trend, specifically among certain disadvantaged groups, including older women. Despite the fact that different surveys draw the objective poverty line at different absolute income levels, it is more important, from a comprehensive sociological viewpoint, to include the numerous non-monetary factors – social and infrastructural – that burden the life of a poor person both objectively and subjectively. The so-called relative poverty also examines the contextual conditions, stresses and strains in the surrounding life situations from which poor people suffer from and which limit their life chances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses living standard as a function of income and insufficient income as being a detriment to quality of life and socio-cultural existence, as well as a factor in social stratification. The author notes efforts in a socialist Germany to mitigate this circumstance and presents research on the characterization of low income groups and social structural change at lower income levels.

The article brings statistics and arguments to bear on the German unemployment problem, particularly among poorly educated, low wage category adults. The author argues that new low wage jobs should be created in domestic areas such as health services, lodging and entertainment, and unskilled outdoor and recreation activities. To compensate for the low income it is suggested that the government subsidize these potential workers' income.

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The article discusses a 1966 report of a special Swedish investigatory commission on the state of the nation's lower income groups. Statistics are reported on 360,000 full-time workers earning at most 15,000 kroner annually, on 80,000 children living in households with no adult wage earners, and a million people unemployed. Women are especially at an income disadvantage.