Citizens' allowance: When and what sanctions are threatened in the future
Created: 11/30/2022, 2:39 p.m
By: Patricia Huber
With the new citizens' income, the sanctions are also handled differently.
What recipients can expect in the future – an overview.
Berlin – Hartz IV is over.
On January 1, 2023, the new citizens' allowance will be launched.
After a long back and forth, the traffic light government and the Union were finally able to come to an agreement and the reform was able to clear the last hurdle.
But in order to achieve that, a few compromises had to be made - and they also affect the sanction regulations for citizen income.
Citizens' allowance: future sanctions in three stages
Actually, future recipients of citizen income should have been protected from benefit cuts by sanctions until mid-2023.
But the moratorium on sanctions falls away with the introduction of the Hartz IV reform.
New regulations will then apply.
In the event of failure to register, the job center may reduce the benefits for those in need by ten percent for one month.
For so-called breaches of duty, a three-stage catalog of penalties will apply from January 1st.
A breach of duty occurs, for example, if a recipient of citizenship allowance repeatedly refuses to accept a reasonable job.
The sanction levels then look like this:
Breach of duty: One month ten percent less citizen money
Breach of duty: Two months 20 percent less citizen money
Breach of duty: Three months 30 percent less citizen money
Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) also wanted to grant recipients of basic income a trust period of six months.
In this case, the benefits should not have been reduced.
But the Union opposed it and threatened to block the entire law.
Thus, the trust time was deleted.
Citizens' money: sanctions compromise causes frustration
However, the compromise was mainly well received by the CSU and CDU.
Social associations are not very enthusiastic about the fact that the sanctions are being continued.
Ulrich Schneider, Managing Director of the Paritätischer Sozialverband, says: "As long as sanctions continue to be imposed on basic security and as long as people continue to be kept in poverty, one cannot seriously speak of a real reform, but at best of an amendment."
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Helena Steinhaus, who campaigns for the rights of Hartz IV recipients with her association Sanctions-free eV, is also disappointed with the citizen benefit result.
"What a waste of time!
Halving of the waiting period and the savings, all sanctions from the start.
Hartz IV is now called citizen money.
But that was clear anyway," she said angrily on Twitter.
(ph/dpa)
