Inflation: Pensioner only eats two meals a day: "You feel like a second-class person"
Created: 06/17/2022, 2:45 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
A pensioner reports how inflation makes life difficult for her - and calls for more social justice.
(Iconic image) © Michael Gstettenbauer/Imago
High food prices hit people on low incomes particularly hard.
A pensioner reports how inflation makes life difficult for her - and calls for more social justice.
Kiel – Inflation and the sharp increase in the cost of living are a great burden for people on low incomes.
For those who are dependent on Hartz IV or a small pension, the price increases of the past few months can endanger their existence.
Social associations and politicians warn of this.
Last week in the Bundestag, the Greens called for higher Hartz IV standard rates and more financial relief.
Pension and Hartz IV: People forego a meal because of inflation
“The increased prices have long been noticeable in everyday life and at the supermarket checkout.
These are severe cuts for more and more people with low incomes, ”said Green Party leader Britta Haßelmann to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Single parents, children and families, people with basic security or with a small pension are particularly affected.
As a representative Insa survey published on Friday on behalf of the
Bild
newspaper shows, 16 percent of the 1,002 respondents are already doing without a regular daily meal because of inflation.
13 percent are considering not eating if inflation persists, while 68 percent are not yet changing.
"We must not be indifferent when many people now say they are going without a meal because of increased food and energy prices," warned Hasselmann.
Inflation: Pensioner has to ration food - "I can't afford more"
The pensioner Renate K. from Kiel is one of the people who have been hit particularly hard by inflation, as
reported
by waz.de.
The 68-year-old receives basic security in addition to her small pension - but after deducting the housing costs, she only has 449 euros to live on.
Because of the sharp rise in food prices, she has to ration her food: "I eat two meals a day," she tells the newspaper.
"I can't afford more." She is very happy that she has an allotment garden that grows fresh fruit and vegetables.
That's why she doesn't want to go to the Tafel, because otherwise she would have the feeling that she was "taking something away from other people who are even worse off than me," the pensioner
tells
waz.de.
But she also doesn't know what to do if prices continue to rise.
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She already has the feeling that her poverty isolates her: She cannot spontaneously drink coffee with friends or go to a concert, she reports to the newspaper.
Other people would avoid her as soon as she revealed her poverty in old age: "If you say in conversation that you can't afford to go to a restaurant, for example, because you're poor, then the mood quickly goes down the drain," says the pensioner
waz.de
.
"Zack, you're sitting alone at the table."
The 68-year-old sums it up: "You feel like a second-class person." But she doesn't want to accept that - and is involved in the Kiel association Groschendreher, which wants to make old-age poverty visible.
"My personal claim is political," says the pensioner of the newspaper.
(lma/dpa)
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