In Germany, more and more single parents and people living alone are at or just below the poverty line. Data from the German Federal Statistical Office that were gathered through the EU‑SILC surveys show that the proportion of single parents at risk of poverty rose from 25.2 % in 2002 to 28.7 %. Today almost one‑third of this group live below the poverty‑risk threshold-1.26 million people were affected last year.
For people who live alone, the situation is even more alarming. Five‑point‑two million such residents face poverty, and their share has risen steadily over the past three years, from 25.7 % to a nearly one‑third share of 30.9 %.
The statistics were requested by the German Party for a Social Economy-Bundeswehr (BSW), and Sahra Wagenknecht, the party’s founder, told “Stern” that the growing number of single parents and families with children falling into poverty represents a “massive failure of economic and family policy”.
The overall trend is similar at the national level. Germany’s general poverty‑risk rate climbed from 14.8 % in 2022 to 16.1 % in 2025. Wagenknecht called the new figures a “poverty testament to the government, turning Germany into a society in decline”. She dismissed debates about part‑time work, dental visits, and the welfare state as pure cynicism and described Friedrich Merz as “on the way to becoming an ‘alms chancellor’ in the history of the Federal Republic”.
