Dusseldorf (dpa / lnw) – The SPD opposition in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament has accused the Union of a “cold-hearted blockade attitude” to the planned citizens’ benefit. Instead of hooking up together, the Union is threatening a blockade in the Bundesrat, said SPD parliamentary group leader Thomas Kutschaty on Thursday in a current hour in the state parliament. According to Kuschaty, the citizen’s income would mean financial relief for over a million people in North Rhine-Westphalia alone.
The citizen’s income planned by the federal government for January 1, 2023 is intended to replace the previous Hartz IV basic security. The CDU had threatened to block the reform in the Bundesrat. Then the Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat would have a say.
Union politicians had warned that the citizen income rules would reduce the incentive to take up work. Among other things, the citizen’s allowance is intended to grant recipients more money than is currently the case with the Hartz IV basic security scheme. The standard rates should increase by around 50 euros. Many Hartz IV recipients currently have to live on 450 euros a month, said Kuschaty. 50 euros more in the wallet is “perhaps a tiny amount for us here, but an extremely important sum for the people affected”.
NRW Labor Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) welcomed the increase in standard rates. “She’s fine and has to come.” But it is normal for the Bundestag and Bundesrat to decide on the law as constitutional bodies.
The CDU MP Marco Schmitz said with regard to the wage gap between those receiving basic security and those on low wages: “We also have to make sure that those who work have more money at the end of the month than those who have received transfer payments.” The FDP in the state parliament assesses the citizens’ income positively. But recipients would also have to feel the consequences, said MP Yvonne Gebauer. It should be possible to sanction multiple failures to report within the so-called six-month period of trust. For the Green MP Jule Wenzel, the reform also means “a new cooperation in the job centers”.
AfD parliamentary group leader Martin Vincentz said that the SPD wanted to eliminate “the big flaw” from Gerhard Schröder’s time as chancellor with the citizen money.
