Before the vote in the Bundesrat, Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder confirmed his rejection of the citizens’ income. “The citizen’s income cannot be approved in the Bundesrat,” said the CSU chairman to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “The basic income disadvantages the lower income groups who have to work hard: cashiers, hairdressers, bus drivers, police chiefs who try to make ends meet every day – and in the end have to realize that not working is almost as lucrative as working. That’s unfair .”
The Chamber of States is scheduled to vote on the social reform on Monday (November 14), the Union could block the central project there. The Union vehemently rejects the project, partly because it believes it reduces motivation to accept work. The traffic light parties reject this. The Bundestag had approved the citizen money on Thursday. In the event of rejection in the Bundesrat, a compromise would have to be found in the joint mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The traffic light plans for citizen income include an increase in the current standard rate of 449 euros for single people to 502 euros. In addition, the unemployed are to be put under less pressure in the future by threatened withdrawal of benefits (sanctions) and instead be given more support with further training measures. In addition, the requirements for the permitted amount of assets and the size of the apartment for benefit recipients are to be relaxed.
Union wants to separate individual measures
The CDU and CSU had proposed supporting the increase in the standard rate, but detaching it from the Citizens’ Income Act so that it can come into force as an individual measure on January 1st. The traffic light refuses.
The FDP accused the Union of spreading untruths in the debate about citizen income – “either because they simply don’t know any better and haven’t familiarized themselves with the matter or because they have nothing more to offer in such an important reform of the welfare state have as polemics,” said FDP Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai of the German Press Agency. “I don’t know which is worse, both are unmasking in any case.”
Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow also sharply criticized the behavior of the Union. It’s no longer about solutions, but about “party-political ego,” said the left-wing politician MDR Aktuell.
The president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, warned of a further delay. “It would be shabby if the introduction of citizen income in the Bundesrat were further delayed or even stopped,” she told the “Rheinische Post”.
According to a survey, the citizen’s income is not well received by a majority of people in Germany. This emerges from the ZDF “political barometer” published on Friday. 58 percent of those surveyed find the basic income “rather bad”, only 35 percent “rather good”. A majority of those surveyed also agreed with the criticism that the new benefit provided too few incentives for the unemployed to look for a new job. 68 percent saw it that way, 26 percent did not share this criticism.
