2024-07-08 13:07:51
Support and demand was a guiding principle in the former Hartz IV system. With today’s citizen’s allowance, the traffic light coalition wants to place greater emphasis on demand. The goal is clear.
The federal government wants to use stricter rules to encourage more people receiving citizen’s allowance to take up work. In future, a longer journey to work will be reasonable, refusing reasonable work will be punished with increased benefit cuts, and illegal work will also lead to cuts. These and other measures are part of the so-called growth initiative of the traffic light coalition, which is primarily intended to get the ailing German economy back on track.
The 31-page paper is available to the German Press Agency in Berlin. The “Bild am Sonntag” newspaper was the first to report on the citizen’s allowance aspect. “In order to maintain acceptance of the benefits and to get more people affected into work, it is necessary to strengthen the principle of consideration again,” it says.
In future, a commute of two and a half hours will be acceptable for those working up to six hours a day, and for those working more than six hours, a three-hour round trip will have to be accepted. The job centers will look for a job within a 50-kilometer radius.
The SPD, Greens and FDP also want to tighten the cooperation obligations of benefit recipients. “Anyone who refuses reasonable work, training or integration measures without good reason will have to expect increased cuts in their citizen’s allowance,” the paper states. The federal government will introduce a uniform reduction amount and duration of 30 percent for three months.
In future, benefit recipients who are available to the job market at short notice will also have to report personally to the relevant authority once a month. In future, undeclared work by citizens’ allowance recipients will be punished as a breach of duty and will lead to benefit cuts of 30 percent for three months.
Before they can claim citizen’s allowance, those affected must first use up their own assets. However, retirement provisions are exempt from this. The traffic light coalition also wants to increasingly assign one-euro jobs to people who repeatedly refuse to take part in measures to integrate them into the labor market.
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann defended the regulations. “Those who voluntarily work more will have more net income from their gross income. Those who do not feel like working, even though they could, will be confronted with stricter rules for citizen’s income,” wrote the liberal on Platform X. He emphasized: “This is socially fair and economically smart in times of labor shortages.”