WIESBADEN – Unemployment is the most frequent reason for a situation of overindebtedness of individuals in Germany. In 2007, it was indicated by just under 30% of the persons given advice by debt advice centres as the main reason for their indebtedness. Other events such as separation, divorce or the partner’s death (14%), sickness, addiction or accident (10%) also led to critical financial situations. 44% of the overindebted persons were singles and thus not directly integrated into a family. This means that single households, which have a share of 38% in all households, were overproportionally affected by overindebtedness. The above and other information on overindebtedness of individuals and on debt advice have been presented at a joint press conference in Berlin today by Roderich Egeler, President of the Federal Statistical Office, and Marius Stark, spokesman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schuldnerberatung der Verbände (AG SBV – working party on debt advice of the associations). 212 out of a total of some 950 debt advice centres participated in the statistics of overindebtedness of the Federal Statistical Office in 2007; they provided anonymised data on approximately 57,000 overindebted persons with the consent of the latter. The President of the Federal Statistical Office, Roderich Egeler, emphasised that such data were obtained direct during the consultation and were transmitted through the online reporting system eSTATISTIK.core without additional burdens placed on the advice centres. For more than half of the overindebted persons (56%) in 2007, the monthly net income was below EUR 900, which means that it was below the protected earnings rate which currently is EUR 990. Among single women and men, even almost three quarters of the overindebted persons had to manage with a net income of under EUR 900. Only about 3% of all overindebted persons had an income of over EUR 2,000 per month. Together with the income of the other household members, overindebted persons had an average monthly net income of EUR 1,165 in 2007. More than one third of that had to be spent on housing, so that just about EUR 750 were available for the remaining livelihood. Heribert Rollik, spokesman of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schuldnerberatung der Verbände, pointed out that the overindebtedness of many families in Germany was a major factor for their impoverishment and social exclusion. The overindebtedness problem referred not only to social fringe groups but extended over large strata of the population. Processes of incurring debt which lead to overindebtedness occurred in all social strata. For the persons concerned, overindebtedness meant an entire destabilisation of their existence. They were subject to stress and psychical pressure and frequently had health problems. Material and immaterial pressure reinforced each other. The critical situation put heavy burdens on partnerships and impaired the development of children. Without qualified debt advice, a growing number of overindebted people had hardly a chance to solve their problems resulting from overindebtedness. The social debt advice of the welfare and consumer associations had the function of economic and social stabilisation. Currently there are some 950 advice centres in Germanywith some 2,000 advisors. When measured by the number of overindebted households, this is by far not sufficient to meet the demand. Due to the insufficient consultation capacities, only 10% to 15% of the indebted/overindebted people can currently get free help at a debt advice centre. Financing of the advice centres is currently ensured by the Länder, municipalities and – using considerable funds of their own – the welfare and consumer associations. Considering the still large number of overindebted households in Germany (about three million) and the enormous social and economic problems involved, it is urgently required from point of view of the debt advice centres to get also in the future reliable statistical data on the persons seeking help from debt advice centres. Therefore, the AG SBV supports a standard statistics of overindebtedness which is co-ordinated with the debt advice centres and also reasonably reflects the advice centres’ work. Detailed results on overindebtedness of individuals and on consumer insolvencies are contained in the accompanying documents of the press conference, which are available free of charge at the web site of the Federal Statistical Office at www.destatis.de. For further information please contact: Federal Statistical Office, Info team on statistics of overindebtedness and insolvencies, tel: (+49-611) 75-2642,
