Germany: Leading Social Democrats have said that the welfare reforms of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder have created a "new underclass" of six million Germans.
A study commissioned by the SPD-sponsored Friedrich Ebert Foundation found 8 per cent of the German population classifies itself as "new poor" - with no job, no savings and no prospects.
The representative study found that one in five eastern Germans and 4 per cent of western Germans had little or no education and little way out of their poverty. Within this "underclass", two-thirds of those questioned had lost their job, while the rest had regular worries about being made redundant.
The debate threatens to cause unrest in the grand coalition in the coming months. The SPD plans to push through minimum wage legislation against Christian Democrat (CDU) opposition.
Meanwhile, the CDU's plans to cut corporate taxes and toughen up further the welfare reforms of chancellor Schröder have raised the hackles of SPD left-wingers, who saw the welfare reforms as a neo-liberal sell-out to begin with.
Leading left-winger Ottmar Schreiner said the "new poor" report showed that "the result of the politics of Gerhard Schröder is poverty and isolation".
SPD leader Kurt Beck has already touched on the topic of the new poor - long a taboo in Germany - by complaining to party colleagues: "There are far too many people in Germany who have absolutely no hope of getting out of the (poverty trap)." His general secretary, Hubertus Heil, tried to calm the inner-party debate at the weekend, calling for restraint in "stigmatising" members of this social group.
He said the real problem was "not just material poverty" but educational poverty.
The SPD plans to present a new education initiative in the coming months, resisting the gradual introduction of third-level fees and offering greater financial support to students from lower income families.