Scholz and the new "citizen's allowance": The state must help, but properly

Created: 07/22/2022, 21:12

By: Georg Anastasiadis

In the Merkur commentary, Georg Anastasiadis criticizes the new “citizen money” of the traffic light around Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

© Mercury

The traffic light government is planning a new law on basic security.

For average earners, the "citizen's allowance" could become a "slap in the face".

Munich – Germany is saving its gas giant Uniper, and all gas customers are forced to pay.

In his big "You'll never walk alone" speech to the nation, the chancellor promises state support to the citizens.

There should be more heating subsidies and protection against dismissal for tenants who can no longer pay their bills.

So far so good.

Chancellor Scholz cheats new law in rescue package

But Olaf Scholz also cheated a new law into his rescue package, which doesn't belong there and makes a mockery of the idea of ​​solidarity: At the turn of the year, the previous basic security should become "citizen's allowance".

The draft law by SPD Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, which is intended to make people forget Hartz IV, destroys a central component of the principle of "support and demand": recipients of basic security who repeatedly miss appointments at the job center should not have to fear any cuts in benefits for six months in the future.

Heil euphoniously calls this “time of trust”.

I beg your pardon?

Two million jobs are unfilled in Germany, companies are desperately looking for employees, especially those with low qualifications - and the government wants to take away incentives for people to take up work?

That would be correct, the FDP is right, on the contrary: people who will receive basic income in the future should be motivated to take up work by allowing them to keep a larger part of their income from a mini job or part-time work.

Smoothing the way back into the labor market is better than making social benefits even more attractive.

The chancellor party, SPD, in particular, should not foster the illusion that the state could continue to inflate the welfare state in the midst of the greatest crisis of the post-war period.

The introduction of an unconditional basic income through the back door is simply not affordable.

Many normal four servants fear for their livelihood and give up their well-deserved vacation

Many average earners who do not receive basic security fear for their livelihood in the face of skyrocketing prices and give up their well-deserved vacation.

For them, a traffic light citizens' allowance that protects not the weak but the comfortable would be a slap in the face.

Solidarity must not be a one-way street