With the citizens’ benefit, the Bundestag decides on a higher standard rate, more protective assets and fewer sanctions for beneficiaries. CSU boss Söder does not consider this to be acceptable and announces that the project will be blocked in the Federal Council. The social association warns that a delay would be catastrophic for the seven million people affected.
After the Bundestag decision for a new citizens’ allowance, the dispute over the project of the traffic light coalition continues. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder threatened to block the law in the Bundesrat, thereby underscoring the Union’s position: “The citizen’s income cannot be approved in the Bundesrat,” said the CSU chairman to the newspapers of the Funke media group. On the other hand, the social association VdK and the Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe expressed a lack of understanding for a possible blockade.
As a reason, Söder said: “The basic income disadvantages the lower income groups who have to work hard: cashiers, hairdressers, bus drivers, police officers who try to make ends meet every day – and in the end have to realize that not working is almost as lucrative as Work. It’s unfair,” he said. When the Bundestag voted in the summer to increase the statutory minimum wage to twelve euros, the Union faction abstained.
On Thursday, the Bundestag launched the citizens’ allowance planned by the traffic light coalition with the majority of the SPD, Greens and FDP. The Union in particular had vehemently rejected the law in advance because there would then be no significant difference in income between people with basic income and low earners. From the point of view of the Union, it also reduces the motivation to accept a job.
The traffic light plans for citizen income include an increase in the current standard rate of 449 euros for single people to 502 euros. In addition, the unemployed are to be put under less pressure in the future by threatened withdrawal of benefits and be given more support in further training measures. In addition, the requirements for the permitted amount of assets and the size of the apartment for benefit recipients are to be relaxed.
The CDU and CSU had proposed supporting the increase, but removing it from the Citizens’ Income Act so that it could come into force as an individual measure on January 1st. The traffic light refuses. Söder is now campaigning again for the law to be split: “Then higher standard rates could already be decided,” he said. “It is incomprehensible that the traffic light is closed to this.”
The president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, warned of a further delay. “It would be shabby if the introduction of citizen income in the Bundesrat were further delayed or even stopped,” she told the “Rheinische Post”. Bentele pointed out that there had been no more adjustments to the Hartz IV standard rates because of the planned citizens’ allowance. Seven million people on minimum social security would not know what to do, it would be “inhumane” to make them wait any longer, she said. “The citizens’ income must come, as planned on January 1st.”
The federal government’s East European Commissioner, Carsten Schneider, accused the Union of “playing low earners off against those in need and benefit recipients”. According to him, many people in East Germany in particular would benefit from the new citizen income regulations. “This is an irresponsible tactical game on the backs of many people in East Germany,” he told the “Rheinische Post” with a view to the Union. For many long-term unemployed people in East Germany, the citizen’s income creates “a stable bridge to the world of work”.
