Energy costs are not included in the standard rate of social assistance.
Benefit recipients are hit particularly hard by increases.
In the district of Erding there are 2,800 recipients, 669 of whom are Ukrainian refugees.
Erding
– Rising energy and food prices are putting Hartz IV recipients under particular pressure.
In the district of Erding, 2,800 people including children are currently receiving benefits from the Aruso job center in Erding – including 669 refugees from Ukraine.
If you want to work, you will find a job – so the cliché goes.
But it's not that easy, says Aruso Managing Director Monja Rohwer.
"Many people who receive benefits from us are ill and cannot work, others are older and fall through the cracks with employers." In addition, the advertised positions are often not compatible with the qualifications of the job seekers.
Living on the subsistence level is not easy.
Now that everything is becoming more expensive, those in need are suffering particularly from inflation, according to the head of the Erding job center: "The money is not enough." Because the standard monthly rates have remained the same, even though the costs for electricity, gas and food are exploding.
Overall, according to a model calculation, 34.7 percent of the complete Hartz IV benefit is planned for food costs.
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Monja Rohwer Managing Director of the Aruso job center in Erding.
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"You're sorry for the whole situation - but there was a special payment," says the job center manager.
At the end of July, a bonus of 200 euros went to the account of the welfare recipient.
The increase in electricity bills in particular will soon hit their clientele hard: "Electricity is not included in the standard rate."
For social welfare recipients, the monthly budget for food is calculated as follows: A single person has 155.82 euros at their disposal, children aged 6 to 13 years 107.92 euros and children from 14 to 17 years 130.47 euros.
"That makes shopping difficult, especially when healthy food is also supposed to be on the table."
If money is missing at the end of the month, the job center's hands are tied: "We can only advise customers to go to the blackboard," explains Rohwer.
But the food banks are now overflowing, almost twice as many customers have come to the issuing offices since the beginning of the war (see report below).
Since June 1st, the job center in Erding has also looked after refugees from the Ukraine.
"We managed the change well," explains Rohwer.
In other districts, such as Freising, there have been repeated problems with payments to the needy.
After all, the employees in Erding also had to process an additional 290 communities of need.
The legal requirement for receiving SGB II benefits is a so-called fictional certificate, which proves the existence of a provisional right of residence, as well as an unequivocal clarification of identity.
According to Rohwer, the number of Ukrainians will also increase in Aruso.
"There are still around 40 applications to be processed - and new Ukrainians are still coming to the job center."
