“Needy young adults living in the shadow of affluent society is a topic that has hardly hardly been addressed until now,” author of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB)-led study, Wilhelm Adamy, told the paper.
The study indicated that 900,000 able-bodied youths under 25 are on the dole, known in Germany as Hartz IV. The study also revealed that another 300,000 Germans from the same age group receive Arbeitslosengeld I – or basic unemployment compensation – putting the total number of “needy” youths at 1.2 million.
This would mean that every third employable youth is receiving some form of external monetary support from the government, the paper reported.
Young Germans in the eastern part of the country are apparently at even greater risk of becoming poor at an early age: the study showed that more than one in six youths in eastern Germany receive some kind of financial help.
The data comes from statistics collected in Summer 2008.