When it comes to additional income, the situation has improved with the change from Hartz IV to citizen income.
For recipients of basic security, however, the situation is unchanged.
Berlin – With the new citizens' allowance, the situation for a number of social welfare recipients in Germany should improve.
The standard rate has risen and anyone who wants to earn something extra can keep more of it than was the case with Hartz IV.
A total of 100 euros in additional earnings are now exempt from deductions with the citizen's income.
But one group was left out: the recipients of basic social security.
Additional income: Citizens’ income is better off than basic security
In Germany, people who draw an old-age pension or disability pension can apply for basic security if they can no longer make a living from their own resources.
This is set out in paragraph 19 of the Twelfth Social Security Code.
But there is a big problem with basic security: the limits for additional income are much stricter for recipients of basic security – especially since the Hartz IV reform – than for recipients of citizen income.
Those receiving basic security may only keep 30 percent of their earnings without being offset.
The remaining 70 percent is offset against social security benefits.
In the case of citizens' income recipients, there is a 100 euro exemption and with an additional income of between 520 and 1000 euros, they can also keep 30 percent without being offset - with Hartz IV it was 20 percent.
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Those who receive basic security are at a disadvantage when it comes to additional income compared to the citizen’s income.
(symbol photo)
© IMAGO/Martin Wagner
Basic security: disability pensioner complains about deductions
Thus, pensioners with reduced earning capacity and other recipients of basic security are in a significantly worse position than recipients of citizenship benefit.
That causes resentment.
A victim tells the
world
about her situation.
Due to her severe lupus disease, the 49-year-old was forced into a disability pension - although she wanted to continue working.
Now she has to give up a large part of the money she earns as a city guide.
This leaves her with only 60 euros of her earnings of 200 euros per month.
With the citizen's income, she could keep 120 euros of her earnings - twice as much.
For her, that would be “a huge freedom,” she tells the newspaper.
This allows her to participate more in social life.
Maybe go to the cinema or buy the 49-euro ticket.
The person concerned has therefore become active and has also tried to draw attention to the issue of basic security recipients among politicians - and slowly but surely the problem is also reaching politics, the disability pensioner suspects.
"We would like to synchronize the allowances and the further crediting of income from SGBII and XII," Stephanie Aeffner, rapporteur on social policy for the Greens in the Bundestag, told
Welt
.
But the mills of politics often grind slowly.
The victim knows that too.
She has already adjusted to a life of poverty in old age.
List of rubrics: © IMAGO/Martin Wagner
