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Slightly fewer Working Poor in Switzerland

03.04.2007

The number of working people between the age of 20 and 59 who live below the poverty line has dropped in the last 5 years (2000 – 2005), the Federal Statistics Office (FSO) said on 2 April 2007. In 2005 the number lay at 125,000. These figures are due to a robust economy but also due to a new definition of poverty – a fact not mentioned in the FSO press release. The charity organisation Caritas criticised this attitude and suggests a different reading of the phenomenon. In 2009, the necessity became more accurate.

Below the poverty line

The Federal Statistics Office said single-parent and larger families, people without formal training and foreigners from outside the European Union were more likely to belong to the working poor. Self-employed people, especially those with no employees of their own, were also likely to end up below the poverty line, and employees with a fixed-term contract or those re-entering the workforce are likely to earn less.

The poverty line is defined as the total of rent, obligatory health insurance and basic needs (which do not include dentistry or school material) plus a monthly contribution of CHF 100 per household member over 16 for further necessary expenditures. In Switzerland, a single person earning less than CHF 2,200 ($1,800) a month – which dropped from CHF 2,490 in 2004 – is considered to live below the poverty line. For a single parent with two children under 16 this limit is CHF 3,800 and for a couple with two children CHF 4,600.

More poor people than that in Switzerland

According to Caritas, one in seven people in Switzerland lives in poverty, i.e. up to one million. Besides the working poor especially unemployed people, children, or old age pensioners are also victims of poverty. Two years later, by the end of 2009, this ist still the case. Because 2010 has been declared European Year For Combating Poverty and Social Exclusionthe by the European Commission on Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, a group of seven Swiss agencies with the common goal of combating poverty decided to joined forces and work on common strategies. In 2009, they say, 9.3% of Swiss children live in relative poverty, according to the OECD, and 12% of pensioners need income support to make ends meet with up to a third of them - 45,000 – still living in poverty despite this assistance.

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