Michael Diettrich at “Vorarlberg LIVE”.
©VOL.AT
Michael Diettrich, spokesman for the Vorarlberg Poverty Conference, was a guest on “Vorarlberg LIVE” on Friday.
Instead of helping with the watering can, the Vorarlberg Poverty Conference calls for targeted relief down to the lower middle class – Vorarlberg’s housing allowance should be improved accordingly.
It is being stated more and more frequently that “the middle class” is also suffering from the persistent rise in prices and needs support. The Vorarlberg Poverty Conference calculated which incomes should be specifically supported.
“That was to be expected” – Poverty Conference has been warning for years
“First of all, the current situation confirms what we have been admonishing for years: with reference to OECD studies, we have repeatedly pointed out that over the past 35 years the bottom 40 percent of the population have been decoupled from the development of wealth and have no reserves, in order to compensate for extraordinary impairments in their living situation, such as the current rise in prices,” says Michael Diettrich. “We have also repeatedly warned that this group is not just people at risk of poverty and on social assistance, but people right down to the lower middle class. Instead of cutting the social welfare benefits that are allegedly too high because their difference to the low earned income is too small be, the situation of the lower paid incomes should have been improved.”
The whole broadcast:
Who is the “lower middle class”?
According to the Austrian Social Report 2015-2016, median incomes start above the risk of poverty threshold, i.e. at 60 percent of median disposable net income. According to a common definition adopted by the Poverty Conference, up to 80 percent of median income is referred to as the lower, low-income middle class. With the help of the income data from the EU-SILC studies by Statistics Austria, it is possible to determine quite precisely how the income of this lower middle class is in relation to the number of household members. Since the most recent EU-SILC data was collected in 2020, the Poverty Conference extrapolated 2020 incomes for 2022 using the negotiated wage index. This method was chosen after consultation with Statistics Austria.
The lower middle class includes:
- One-person households with annual net income including social benefits and special payments between 17,300 euros and 23,000 euros. This net income is achieved with gross monthly salaries of between EUR 1,481 and EUR 2,142
- Families with two children and annual net income including social benefits and special payments between EUR 36,200 and EUR 48,200. An annual net income of 36,200 euros is achieved by a two-income household with monthly gross salaries of 1,800 euros and 980 euros, for example, one of 48,200 euros with monthly gross salaries of 2,500 euros and 1,390 euros.
The Vorarlberg Poverty Conference recommends concentrating relief measures on households that have a maximum of 80 percent of the median income. In addition to those at risk of poverty, this would actually also include the low-income, lower middle class and roughly the bottom 40 percent of the population, which according to the OECD should be given special attention.
The broadcast “Vorarlberg LIVE” is a cooperation between VOL.AT, VN.at, Ländle TV and VOL.AT TV and is broadcast from Monday to Friday from 5 p.m. There’s more here.
