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Corona hole in the wallet: 16 million citizens complain about a loss of income

2021-06-17T23:19:04.500Z


The number of infections is falling, Germany is opening up again, but many citizens are worried. More than 40 percent have to get by on less money than before the pandemic - and are wondering how long they can still service their loans.


Enlarge image

Hard blow for many mini-jobbers: restaurants had to close in many parts of Germany.

Photo: Müller-Stauffenberg / imago images

The corona pandemic has resulted in some private households putting massive amounts of money on the high edge - simply because there were hardly any opportunities to spend it due to the lockdown measures. But to be precise, it is only part of the population that has this luxury problem. Because at the same time, many households in Germany are struggling with a completely opposite development. They have a lot less money to spend because of the pandemic - and fear of falling into a debt spiral.

Specifically, the corona crisis has brought about a loss of income to almost 40 percent of German consumers.

»At the end of April 2021, 16.4 million households had less money at their disposal.

That was around 1.7 million more than in our survey in October 2020, ”said Patrik-Ludwig Hantzsch from the credit reporting agency Creditreform.

In addition to short-time workers, those affected increasingly include mini-jobbers and self-employed people.

Creditreform assumes that there will be a significant increase in private over-indebtedness by 2023 at the latest.

State aid is currently causing a delay.

"Most likely, the peak of new indebtedness will not be reached until next year or the year after next."

The feeling when the debt grows over your head

Almost one in three respondents fears that they will not be able to pay regular or extraordinary household debts in the next twelve months. These included, above all, costs for electricity and heating, urgent and necessary purchases for a house or apartment, and for rents. "A good ten percent of those surveyed admitted that in the past twelve months they had already had the feeling that their financial liabilities were growing over their heads."

The smaller household budget and the fear of impending payment problems are causing many consumers to cut their expenses. 57 percent of those surveyed stated that they wanted to spend less money on consumption and the standard of living due to the crisis. According to Creditreform, that's 23.7 million households. At the top of the cross-off list are expenses for leisure and vacation as well as clothing and home textiles.

At the same time, the corona crisis has caused many consumers to regularly put money aside.

"The proportion of regular savers rose in April 2021 to the highest level since our surveys began in October 2010," explains Stephan Vila, Managing Director of Creditreform Boniversum.

Depending on the personal income situation, the proportion of regular savers varies between 20 percent for low earners and more than 60 percent for high earners.

But many consumers also have some catching up to do.

According to the survey, almost 40 percent said they would want to take out credit for new purchases in the next few months.

beb / afp

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-06-17

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