"Pensioner poverty even affects the middle class in the meantime," Wagenknecht, who formally split from the socialist Left Party and formed the new party in January, told dpa on Saturday. She claimed that neither Chancellor Olaf Scholz, also a former finance minister, nor his CDU challenger Friedrich Merz had an answer to the issue.
Eurostat data suggests roughly one in six pensioners in the country fall into the category. The figure had risen slightly in 2023, to 3.245 million, from 3.157 million the previous year. But in 2021, amid the inflationary pressure following the COVID pandemic, it had stood at 3.3 million.
However, demographic changes in Germany and its aging population play a significant role in this increase, with the pensioner population increasing by more than 50% since 1991, from 12 million to 18.7 million by 2022.
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