Hartz IV: "Only 2.55 euros" for school books - the social court slows job centers and criticizes them heavily

Created: 01/11/2022, 02:08 PM

From: Thomas Schmidtutz

Federal Employment Agency: In the dispute over the assumption of costs for an electronic dictionary, the social court in Oldenburg has now passed a groundbreaking judgment.

© Sebastian Gollnow / dpa / symbol image

School books can be expensive.

Hartz IV recipients receive money for it.

But according to the Oldenburg Social Court, the corresponding rate is far too low for that.

Oldenburg - The job center has to reimburse a student for the cost of an electronic dictionary.

If such dictionaries are prescribed, they are to be treated like school books, ruled the Odenburg Social Court in a judgment from last November that has now become known.

The Hartz IV rate for school books of 2.55 euros per month misses reality, the court made clear (Az .: S 37 AS 1268/19).

In this case, the applicant, who was born in 2003, received supplementary benefits under SGB II (Hartz IV * or, in the future, citizen benefits *) together with her mother and siblings.

She was a student in the 11th grade at a vocational school.

The school asked them to purchase a Casio EW-G 570 C electronic dictionary for language lessons at a price of around 139 euros.

Job center rejects the assumption of costs

The plaintiff then applied to the job center for reimbursement of the costs.

However, the job center refused.

As a justification, the authority stated that the dictionary was to be assigned to personal school needs.

The corresponding costs are already covered by the approved benefits for education and participation.

The social court in Oldenburg, however, came to the opposite assessment and obliged the job center to assume the costs.

Standard requirement not realistic

The standard requirement also includes the cost of purchasing school books.

However, the court considered the determination of the standard requirement to be unrealistic.

The amount for the procurement of school books was "not correctly recorded in a realistic manner" when determining the standard requirement, the court said. 

The ruling said that “only” costs of € 2.55 (…) per month were taken into account for the purchase of school books.

The corresponding annual amount of 30.60 euros is “well below the costs at issue here of 138.95 euros”, according to the chamber's justification.

The judges ruled that this would not cover the need for the procurement of school books, at least in countries that would not guarantee the freedom of teaching materials.