Abridged English version of the SCHUFA Credit Compass 2008

Debt Compass | Overview of Analyses and Core Findings
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that fundamentally every income group in Germany has access to credit. Certainly among private
households with consumer credit, the portion of over-indebted households that are at risk of
poverty or income-poor is disproportionately high. 26 percent of all over-indebted households
with consumer credit (upper limit for over-indebtedness) are income-poor. Nearly three-fourths
of households that are over-indebted and
Analysis E:
Is the impoverished population in Germany excluded?
The analysts Petra Buhr and Stephan Leibfried give an overview of concepts in poverty research
and specifications of income poverty. They pursue the question of whether poverty inevitably
leads to social exclusion. Among other things, the analysis discusses “consistent poverty”, by
which is meant the coincidence of income poverty with shortages in many other areas of life.
While consistent poverty is an indicator for exclusion processes, there are inconsistent conditions
that cross the boundaries between poverty and non-poverty.
Core Findings
There are partial and intermittent exclusions as well as blurred transitions between poverty and
non-poverty. This speaks for a gradational, gradual and dynamic concept of exclusion and against
a sharp dividing line between “inside” and “outside”. Even if the mobility of the impoverished
population has lessened in recent years and smaller rises are more common than larger ones,
poverty is not a consistently self-reinforcing process with no way out. The majority of the poor,
even if they are poor for a long time, actively cope with their situation, have the prospect of
escape and retain the ability to act. In this respect the “connectivity” to non-poverty, normal
biography and normal conduct of life is preserved even with long-term poverty.