As of: February 2, 2024, 8:13 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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Rainer Schlegel, President of the Federal Social Court, in the Ludwigskirche in Saarbrücken.
(Archive image) © BeckerBredel/Imago
The German social system is facing a turning point, explains Rainer Schlegel, President of the Federal Social Court, in a report.
Among other things, he advocates the abolition of mini-jobs.
Kassel – The healthcare and pension system in Germany need money and investments – but actually our infrastructure also needs to be modernized.
And then there is the desolate state of the Bundeswehr and the ambitious climate goals.
Rainer Schlegel, President of the Federal Social Court, fears in an interview with the
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
that the increasing competition for limited financial resources will also have an impact on the social system.
President of the Federal Social Court on mini-jobs: “They should be abolished”
He has been a social judge since 1987 and President of the Federal Social Court in Kassel for more than seven years.
Schlegel sees the welfare state facing a turning point: “We will no longer be able to afford a lot of things because the money is no longer available - also because it can no longer be obtained so easily through debt,” he told the newspaper.
The traffic light has so far “steadfastly” defended the social system against cuts.
As a way to save money, he suggests “considering whether we want to maintain the strong subsidization of part-time work in the long term.”
The marginal employment, the so-called mini-jobs, is an anachronism from times of high unemployment.
For mini-jobs there is a maximum monthly wage of 538 euros for a maximum of 70 days of work per calendar year.
Due to the lack of social security contributions, mini-jobs do not provide social security.
“They should be abolished
(editor's note: mini-jobs)
or only allowed for schoolchildren and students.
Such a reform would relieve the burden on social security funds and be good for the labor market,” Schlegel told the
FAZ
.
It is clear to him that mini-jobs are very popular.
But part-time employment is “not socially fair because it imposes costs on the general public, at the latest in terms of old age security”.
“The welfare state is only as strong as the German economy”
The President of the Federal Social Court also warned that our social system, which is based on solidarity, requires that we have enough resources to allow others to participate.
“The welfare state is only as strong as the German economy.
These are two sides of the same coin.
That's why a sustainability debate about the welfare state actually begins with the question: What do we have to do to ensure our economy remains efficient?" Schlegel told the newspaper.
The German economy is currently weakening and is on the verge of recession.
The gross domestic product shrank by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2023 - mainly because less was invested in buildings and equipment such as machines.
If the second minus in a row follows in the current first quarter, it is referred to as a technical recession.
The outlook also remains cloudy for the time being.
The losses in purchasing power suffered by high inflation in 2022 and 2023 continued to put a strain on private households - and thus also on important consumer spending.
The export-oriented part of the German economy, in turn, suffers from the fact that the global economy is also not dynamic.
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“The overall weak order situation, the continued high interest rates and the threat of renewed delivery bottlenecks due to disruptions to the trade route through the Red Sea and export restrictions on strategic raw materials mean that no significant growth impulses can be expected in the near future,” said DIW economic expert Laura Pagenhardt.
With material from Reuters