The poverty line for single-person households in 2017 was 999 euros a month. Families with two children with a monthly net income of less than 2099 euros a month were living in poverty.

In 2017, 15.8 per cent of all people in Germany were living in poverty.There are still clear differences in the poverty rates in East and West Germany, but the gap between the new and the old federal states is becoming smaller.

The jobless are more frequently affected by poverty than the average of the total population. In 2016 the proportion of jobless affected by poverty was 57.2 per cent, but the poverty rate among the gainfully employed shows that paid work does not always protect against poverty.

The frequency of children in Germany being affected by poverty is disproportionately high. In the period from 2005 to 2017 the poverty rate of children under the age of 18 was continuously above that of the total population.

The nominal average gross monthly income of private households in Germany has constantly increased in the last nine years. In 2017 the average gross monthly income of private households was 4,474 euros.

The monthly net incomes of German households nominally rose markedly after 2006: in the base year, the average monthly income was 2,764 euros. Until 2017 it went up to 3,399 euros.

Nominal gross earnings in Germany have risen continually since 2005. They went up from 2,901 euros in 2005 to 3,880 euros in 2018. The difference between East and West Germany is still large.

In 2017, every person living alone with a monthly net income of more than 3,332 euros was deemed income-rich. The wealth threshold for families with two children was a monthly net income of at least 6,996 euros.

The proportion of people in households with a net income above the 200% wealth threshold has risen slightly in all Germany since 2005.