Anyone who refuses to work at all costs hardly has to fear sanctions. A citizen’s income that is really only intended to help those who cannot help themselves would have to look different from the red-green-yellow project in four main respects.
On January 1, 2023, Hartz IV will not only be renamed “citizen’s benefit”. This transfer benefit will also be granted more generously in the future. More people will get more money.
Anyone who even bothers to take up vocational training will even get extra money from the state for this matter of course. Above all, recipients of basic income do not need to touch existing assets (up to 150,000 euros for a family with two children) before the taxpayer pays for them.
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In addition, the office pays the rent itself for two years for an apartment that is too large and too expensive. After all, the principle of promoting and challenging is more or less over. Anyone who refuses to work at all costs hardly has to fear sanctions. In fact, these can only be imposed after nine months.
Whether the state support is called Hartz IV or citizen’s income: it is an expression of a society based on solidarity. Anyone who – for whatever reason – cannot work or cannot find a new job after the regular unemployment benefit (ALG I) has expired, their living expenses are covered by the state.
Although that’s not entirely correct. Strictly speaking, the state does not finance the upkeep of transfer money recipients; rather, it is the millions of people who go to work every day and pay taxes and social security contributions from their income. The Federal Minister of Labor does not pay for the welfare state; only the diligent and capable do that.
These financiers of the welfare state are – albeit forced – in solidarity with the non-working. Tax-paying employees, the self-employed and entrepreneurs are therefore also entitled to the solidarity of the beneficiaries. Solidarity in the sense that taxpayers only claim or should claim those who cannot help themselves – and only as long as they cannot.
Quite a few low-skilled workers do just that. They work diligently, although they have little more net than if they became “customers” of the employment agency. These people rightly perceive work as something meaningful and consciously do not want to be a burden on others. They are the actual “heroes of work” in a welfare state.
The citizen income concept will of course increase the temptation to live at the expense of the state rather than accept a low-paid job. Those who do not assume that all people are noble, helpful and good will not be surprised.
The “old Adam” in us tends to take advantage of what can be taken away. But the generous welfare state invites free riders to come along. With the citizens’ allowance, the desire to ride free of charge is even greater.
A citizen’s income that is really only intended to help those who cannot help themselves would have to look different from the red-green-yellow project in four main respects.
The placement priority must not be dropped, sanctions must not be weakened, the assets should be based on the length of employment and the possibility of additional income must be measured more generously.
With Hartz IV, the so-called placement priority applied. If you got a job offer, you had to accept it, even if you were overqualified for it. Under the basic income rules, unemployed people who do not want to accept jobs that are offered can rely on further training.
Anyone who goes through further training is rewarded by the state with 150 euros per month. In the future, the state wants to reward people who do something that goes without saying, namely qualifying in their own interest.
Attempts to place the long-term unemployed in simple jobs have often not led to the desired result.
Many employers can report how those placed by the employment agency let everyone know as soon as they start work that this job simply does not appeal to them. Then the bosses knew what would soon follow: first a sick note and then the permanent absence.
So far, such behavior has only been sanctioned to a limited extent. Many employers have no desire to document such violations to the job center. If the sanctions that were due up to now are even weakened, it is easy to imagine where this will lead.
The fact that something is going terribly wrong in this country is shown, among other things, by the fact that we “import” harvest workers year after year, because 3.6 million Hartz IV recipients do not see themselves in a position to take on this undoubtedly difficult work.
The airports were also looking for workers abroad to speed up baggage handling in this country. Such jobs are not for everyone. But the assumption that among 3.6 million there shouldn’t be a few thousand fit men for this job is unrealistic.
We have a labor shortage in this country, especially in the so-called “low-skilled jobs”. This is mainly due to the decline in the birth rate, the aging of society and the tendency of young people who are not particularly gifted to pursue higher education.
If, for example, the hotel and restaurant association demands that workers from third countries be allowed to work here, regardless of their qualifications, then that is incomprehensible in view of the 700,000 unemployed and 3.6 million Hartz IV recipients.
It is only right and proper that someone must first attack their own wealth before the state can finance their livelihood. Up to now, this ability to spare has varied according to age; for a 40-year-old it was around 40,000 euros.
It is now being increased to EUR 60,000 for a recipient of citizenship benefit and to EUR 30,000 for each additional person in the community of need.
The state makes no difference whether a beneficiary has worked for many years and was able to earn something himself, or whether someone has not worked a single day, but perhaps inherited it.
It would be fair to have a regulation that takes past lifetime achievement into account. To put it simply: the longer someone has worked and paid taxes, the higher the protective assets should be. That would make it more difficult for some clans to receive basic income, whose members are unemployed but still have assets – from whatever source.
Previously, a Hartz IV recipient had an allowance of 100 euros if he worked a few hours. He was allowed to keep 20 percent of the remaining additional earnings; in the future he will have 30 percent of the basic income.
That really isn’t much of an incentive not to rely solely on the “pillar” financially. Transfer money recipients, if they also work, can definitely find their way back into the labor market – from mini-job to full-time.
But in order to open up this possibility, taking up a job would have to be more lucrative. When it comes to additional earnings, why not melt away a significantly higher tax-free allowance with increasing income? After all, which beneficiary would like to work extra if they only have 30 percent of it left?
Anyone who places an ad and is looking for help for the house or garden can look forward to many offers. However, as soon as the potential employer drops the word tax card, his counterpart usually loses all interest.
Because the method “support plus undeclared work” is widespread. Of course, this cannot only be held against undeclared recipients. There is no undeclared work without employers who offer undeclared work.
It is often the same contemporaries who loudly complain about those who exploit the social system, but who themselves like to save taxes and social security contributions on their helpers. These “undeclared workers” live from the fact that the state does not control who works in private households.
Twenty years ago, the Schröder/Fischer government introduced the most comprehensive reform of our social system to date with the Hartz laws. The economic upswing and overcoming the then very high unemployment would not have been possible without these highly unpopular measures that came into force in 2005.
It would be important, after almost two decades, to put the Hartz laws to the test. But that’s exactly what the traffic light didn’t do. During the election campaign, the SPD and the Greens had promised more money for everyone who couldn’t or didn’t want to work. And with the citizens’ income, they keep their election promises, approved by the FDP.
The new basic security provides for those who do not work better than before, but hardly promotes the way back to the labor market. Only pulling yourself together for vocational training when the state increases salaries by 30 percent does not exactly show a willingness to perform.
The citizen money combines the weaknesses of the old concept with new, expensive benefits. It is the opposite of a sustainable and fair solution – fair to the beneficiaries and the financiers of the system.
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