Expensive life
Household budget is slowly recovering from high inflation
The prices have only increased moderately since last year – this protects the wallet for many people. But the inflation in the years before is not yet digested.
Normal earners still feel the aftermath of the very high inflation 2022 and 2023 in the household budget. According to figures from the Federal Statistical Office, the net household income rose by almost ten percent from 2021 to 2024. However, the inflation rate was 15.7 percent over the years. The Sahra Wagenknecht alliance caught up with the special evaluation at the statistics office.
According to this, the available household income increased by an average of 9.5 percent from 41,887 euros in 2021 to 45,865 euros last year. Alternatively, if you take the so -called median income, the same trend is shown with an increase of 9.9 percent: it has increased from 33,558 to 36,882 euros since 2021.
The median is a statistical center line between the highest 50 percent of income and the lowest 50 percent. This means that extremely high or extremely low values are less important than with a pure average calculation.
The numbers also show that net household income has recovered since inflation has dropped significantly: last year the median income grew by 3.8 percent, while the inflation rate was only 2.2 percent. The high inflation rate 2022 is still important with 7.9 percent and 2023 with 5.9 percent. Also in 2021 it was noticeably higher at 3.1 percent than now.
“The Germans have not only become a little poorer, but have lost significantly in wealth,” commented BSW boss Sahra Wagenknecht. “The easy plus of the nominal income cannot compensate for the inflation of recent years.”
She criticized the fact that Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) spoke of the situation that has been lived for years. This is “a real insolence in view of the numbers,” said Wagenknecht. She warned against reaching people “even deeper” into the wallet.
dpa
Source: Stern
