As of: March 19, 2024, 6:48 a.m
By: Bettina Menzel
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The CDU no longer wants to pay basic security to “total refusers”.
However, statistics show that only a very small proportion of those receiving community benefit refuse reasonable work.
Berlin - The CDU is heating up the debate about citizens' money again.
If the Christian Democrats were in government, so-called “total refusers” – i.e. people who refuse reasonable work – would no longer receive any support benefits.
The CDU federal executive board decided this publicly on Monday.
As data from the employment agency shows, this only affects a few people.
And: Such a reduction in benefits by 60 percent or more is incompatible with the Basic Law.
At least that's what the Federal Constitutional Court ruled in 2019.
According to statistics from the employment agency, there are so many “total refusers” to citizens’ benefit
Citizens' money replaced Hartz IV as basic security in Germany in 2023.
From January to November 2023, 5.5 million people were eligible, 1.6 million of whom were available for the labor market.
According to data from the employment agency, there were 201,465 cases of reduced performance during this period.
But how many of them are so-called “total refusers”?
“We cannot statistically evaluate how often a reduction was determined because someone rejected work,” said the agency’s spokesman to the
Tagesschau
.
The CDU wants stricter sanctions for so-called “total refusers” to receive citizens’ money.
An analysis shows: There are few of them.
© IMAGO/imageBROKER/alimdi / Arterra / Philippe Clément
But there is still a clue: According to the employment agency, 13,838 people received less citizen's benefit in the first eleven months of last year because they did not want to take up or continue work, training, further education, qualifications or agency measures.
The agency announced this in response to a query from the
Tagesschau
.
Measured against all 1.6 million citizens' benefit recipients available in the labor market, only 0.86 percent are “refusers” of work or training.
Citizens’ benefit recipients in 2023 |
5.5 million people |
Of these, children under 15 years of age who cannot work |
1.5 million people |
Employable beneficiaries |
4 million people |
- Of that |
|
- Employed |
800,000 people (around 20 percent) |
- Are not available to the labor market (training, studying, raising children, etc.) |
1.6 million people (around 40 percent) |
- Are available to the labor market |
1.6 million people (around 40 percent) |
Source: Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
Regarding the “total refusers” debate: 80 percent of performance reductions happen for this reason
So-called “total refusers” are therefore rather rare.
“In general, it can be stated that more than 80 percent of the reductions have recently been determined due to failure to report,” the employment agency continued.
Failure to report occurs when recipients of citizen's benefit do not appear at the provider's office or at a medical or psychological examination appointment without proof of a valid reason.
Data from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB), which was available to
Ippen.Media
, indicates a maximum of two percent of so-called “total refusers”.
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Citizens' money debate: Karl Lauterbach criticizes the CDU initiative
A look at the statistics also shows that the number of people who received basic security due to a job loss has fallen to a low since the introduction of citizens' benefit.
Around 341,000 people slipped from employment on the regular labor market to basic security in 2023.
This corresponds to 54,000 fewer than in 2022, according to a response from the federal government to a request from the Greens in the Bundestag, which was available to the German Press Agency.
According to economist Enzo Weber, there is also no statistical evidence that people from the low-wage sector, such as the cleaning industry, are migrating to citizen's benefit.
“An escape from employment looks different,” says the scientist.
However, one accusation against citizens' money persists in the public debate: working is no longer worth it.
“In Germany, work always leads to higher incomes than doing nothing,” is the conclusion of a study by the economic research institute ifo.
The CDU has already been accused of AfD rhetoric in the past for its citizens' money initiative.
Because many people with a migrant background would also receive basic security, “the CDU wants to go back to Hartz 4,” wrote Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) recently on the X platform (formerly Twitter).
This is a clear example of how the Alternative for Germany is driving the CDU ahead of itself, Lauterbach continued.
Scientist: What the performance principle has to do with the citizen's money debate
And why is there a renewed discussion about citizens' money, even if the statistics actually show the problem of "total refusers" to be minor?
From the point of view of the scientist Steffen Mau from the Humboldt University in Berlin, this is due to a change in social competitive conditions.
The performance principle has been extremely internalized in German society over the past few decades, said Mau in an interview with the Situation of the Nation
podcast team in February
.
“It’s no longer so strong from bottom to top, but rather on one level.”
People in close social proximity would have the greatest reservations about increasing citizens' allowance.
So those “who earn a little more, who are in the low-wage sector.” The former vertical class struggle has become a horizontal competition between different groups.
“This grabs everyone’s attention,” says Mau.
Citizens' money is discussed disproportionately publicly, but "not about inheritance and wealth tax or the top tax rate," according to the researcher.