Hartz IV: far too little money for textbooks - social court slows down job centers and practices severe criticism

Created: 01/14/2022, 08:45

By: 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 picture

Textbooks can cost money.

Hartz IV recipients get money for it.

But according to the Social Court of Oldenburg, the corresponding sentence is far too low.

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

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

The court made it clear that the Hartz IV rate for school books of EUR 2.55 a month is unreal (Az.: S 37 AS 1268/19).

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

She was an 11th grade student at a vocational school.

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

Jobcenter refuses to accept the costs

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

However, the job center refused.

As justification, the authorities explained that the dictionary was to be attributed to personal school needs.

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

The Social Court of Oldenburg, on the other hand, came to the opposite conclusion and obliged the job center to bear the costs.

Rule requirement not realistic

The standard requirement also includes the costs for the purchase of textbooks.

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

The amount for the procurement of textbooks was "not recorded in a realistic manner" when determining the standard requirement, the court explained. 

According to the judgment, "only" costs of €2.55 (...) per month were taken into account for the purchase of textbooks.

The corresponding annual amount of EUR 30.60 is "significantly lower than the costs of EUR 138.95 at issue here", according to the reasoning of the Chamber.

The judges ruled that this does not cover the need for the procurement of textbooks, at least in countries that do not guarantee freedom of teaching materials.