Poverty in Germany refers to people living in relative poverty in Germany.

During the last decades the number of people living in poverty has been increasing. Children are more likely to be poor than adults. There has been a strong increase in the number of poor children. In 1965 only one in 75 children lived on welfare, in 2007 one in 6 did.

Poverty rates differ by states. While in 2005 in states like Bavaria only 6,6% of children and 3,9% of all citizens were impoverished in Berlin 15,2% of the inhabitants and 30,7% of the children received welfare payments.

The German Kinderhilfswerk, an Organization caring for children in need, has demanded the government to do something about this.

Bundesland (state)	Children on the welfare rolls (percent of all children, in 2005)	Persons on the welfare rolls (percent of all persons, in 2005)
Bavaria Bavaria Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...	6.6 %	3.9 %
Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...	7.2 %	4.1 %
Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....	9.9 %	5.5 %
Hesse Hesse Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...	12.0 %	6.5 %
Lower Saxony Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...	13.5 %	7.6 %
North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...	14.0 %	8.1 %
Saarland Saarland Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...	14.0 %	7.4 %
Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...	14.4 %	8.2 %
Hamburg Hamburg -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...	20.8 %	10.6 %
Thuringia Thuringia The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....	20.8 %	10.4 %
Brandenburg Brandenburg Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...	21.5 %	12.0 %
Saxony Saxony The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....	22.8 %	11.8 %
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	27.8 %	14.9 %
Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...	27.9 %	14.2 %
Bremen Bremen The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...	28.1 %	13.8 %
Berlin Berlin Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...	30.7 %	15.2 %
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Consequences of poverty

Poor people in Germany are less likely to be healthy than well-off people. This correlates with statistics about the life style of this group that indicate higher prevalence to smoking cigarettes, being overweight, and exercising less. Consequently, they run a higher risk of experiencing lung cancer, hypertension, heart attacks, diabetes, and a number of other illnesses. Those who are out of work are more likely to smoke, more likely to be hospitalized, and more likely to die early than the ones who work. Furhermore, poverty has been shown to have a negative impact on marital satisfaction. Poor couples are more likely to argue, while being less supportive for each other and their children.

Poor children face limited educational opportunities. According to a AWO-Study only 9% of the pupils visiting the Gymnasium are poor. Poor children are likely to experience adversities beyond money. They are more likely to be raised by a teenage-parent. They are more likely to have multiple young siblings, are more likely to be raised in crime-ridden neighbourhoods and more likely to live in substandard apartments which are often overcrowded. Their parents are likely to be less educated and they are more likely to have emotional problems.

Children growing up poor are more likely to get involved in accidents than their non-poor peers. They are less likely to follow a healthy diet. They are less likely to be healthy. In poor neighborhoods many children suffer from speech impairments and stunted motoric development They tend to have lower IQs.

Poor children are more likely to get involved in criminal activities and are more likely to take drugs. However, many people who live in poverty overcome the odds and are doing very well. See: psychological resilience

Psychological resilience

Resilience in psychology refers to the idea of an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a “steeling effect” and function...

Groups most likely to be poor

Working class families from ethnic minorities with multiple children are the group most likely to be poor. Families headed by a single parent are also more likely to experience economic hardship than others. While only 0,9% of childless couples and 2,0% of married couples received welfare in 2002, 26,1% of single mothers did. In 2008, 43 percent of families headed by a single woman had to rely on welfare as the main source of household income. A change in welfare laws, which made it impossible to receive unemployment benefits if one had not worked for a time, was accountable for that increase. Poverty rates are high among people who did not graduate from school and did not learn a trade. 42% of poor people did not learn a trade.