The coalition and opposition have exchanged heated blows in the Bundestag about the planned citizens’ allowance. Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) said on Thursday at the first consultation on the reform: “The introduction of citizen income on January 1 will be one of the largest social reforms in 20 years.” The Union criticized that the traffic light wanted to refrain from activating the long-term unemployed in the future.
“We want to reliably protect people who are in existential need,” said Heil. The citizen money should also ensure that those affected come out of need permanently.
The traffic light coalition wants to use the citizens’ income to replace the Hartz IV system in its current form for the more than five million affected people on January 1 next year. Even before the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, it was the central socio-political promise of the traffic light coalition. With their third relief package at the beginning of September, the SPD, Greens and FDP also decided that the standard rates for basic security should increase by 50 euros. For single adults, for example, it will rise from 449 to 502 euros in 2023. In the future, demand is to be adjusted to inflation rates in a forward-looking manner.
In general, those entitled to benefits should be able to better concentrate on looking for work in the future. For this reason, the costs for accommodation and heating should be covered in the actual amount in the first two years of receiving citizenship benefit. Wealth is not taken into account unless it is significant. Job centers and those affected should set up a cooperation plan. The cooperation should take place on an equal footing.
“It’s good that we’re finally overcoming Hartz IV,” said Green labor market politician Beate Müller-Gemmeke. Heil said that when the Hartz laws were introduced, there was mass unemployment. Today there is a shortage of skilled workers in Germany. So far, the long-term unemployed have often been kept afloat with unskilled work. “We want to give people the opportunity to catch up on a professional qualification,” says Heil.
criticism from the opposition
CSU labor market expert Stephan Stracke called the reform “a missed opportunity”. “The citizen money goes completely in the wrong direction.” It challenges and encourages people too little. The CDU labor market expert Kai Whittaker said: “With this citizen’s allowance, the focus is not on the people, but on the SPD’s Hartz IV dealing with the past – you want to calm people down instead of activating them.” It is meticulously determined “what the job center employee is not allowed to do during the trust period,” Whittaker criticized.
AfD MP Gerrit Huy said: “It’s nothing more than a softened Hartz IV – and that didn’t work.” Jessica Tatti from the left, on the other hand, said it was the first Hartz reform that didn’t make everything worse. However, Hartz IV is not going to be overcome. According to Tatti, among other things, a cash payment would be necessary “that is sufficient for a life free of fear”.
The citizens’ income reform will now continue to be discussed in the committees of the Bundestag. On the agenda of the plenum on Thursday were also the first consultations on the planned housing benefit reform and on the energy price flat rate for pensioners.
Agenda of the Bundestag
