From the abolition of the waiting period to protect savings to the complete abolition of benefits for supposed “total refusers”: the approximately 5.5 million recipients of the previous citizen’s benefit are facing significantly tougher times.
After the cabinet in mid-December has cleared the way for the “new basic security”this Thursday the Bundestag will for the first time deal with the corresponding draft law from Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD). It is foreseeable that not least the Union and the AfD will once again sing the old song of the Taiga about mass social abuse.
The debate is dominated by the image of the supposedly so many lazy people who could work but would rather have leisure time at the expense of the state: the so-called total objectorswho are constantly uncooperative and skip appointments at the job center. Even the Ministry of Labor emphasizes that this is a distorted image. Less than one percent of citizens’ benefit recipients were recently considered “total refusers”.
In fact, mental illnesses are often the reason why those affected do not show up for appointments at the job center, says Nils Wohltmann. He is an advisor to the Berlin Unemployment Center of the Evangelical Church Circles, or BALZ for short. “The proportion of people with mental illnesses in our advice is increasing,” reports Wohltmann.
To err is official
Wohltmann and his colleagues from BALZ regularly stand in front of Berlin job centers with a bus. Under the motto “To err is official,” they offer advice at eye level, he tells the taz. When those affected come straight from an appointment to his consultation on the bus, they are often in a 180 state. Wohltmann says with regard to the employment agents: “Too much humiliation happens.”
According to Wohltmann, the BALZ advises “a very heterogeneous group” that has one thing in common: precarious living conditions. “We meet single parents, people who care for their relatives, people with chronic illnesses and people with addiction problems.” In the language of the authorities, these are the so-called obstacles to mediation.
Wohltmann attaches great importance to the fact that everyone he meets wants to work: “On the bus with us, people always say: ‘I want to find a job, I want to live without a job center.'” Ultimately, it is personal reasons that prevent them from actually being able to go to work.
The black-red reversal of citizens’ money is aimed at exactly this group. People should “earn their living completely and, if possible, permanently, from their own resources,” says the federal government’s draft law. Accordingly, the “duties to cooperate” of those affected are also tightened, including the threat of sanctions.
Panic among those affected
According to the current regulations, breaches of duty are currently punished on a staggered basis. After the first breach of duty, such as a missed appointment, the job center can reduce the citizen’s allowance by 10 percent for one month. For the second violation, 20 percent is forfeited for two months, and for the third violation, 30 percent for three months.
In the future, the money is to be reduced by 30 percent after the second missed deadline. If you fail to show up for the third time, your payments will be canceled completely for at least one month. Even those who cancel a funding measure or do not apply must expect a greater reduction in cash benefits than before. The standard requirement should then be able to be reduced by 30 percent for every three months.
Labor Minister Bas assures that everyone who works with the job centers or cannot keep appointments for important reasons does not have to expect cuts. Protective mechanisms should also be strengthened in the event of reduced performance for people with mental illnesses. This is unlikely to reassure those affected, especially since the CDU and CSU continue to focus on toughness.
Even a 30 percent cut is a very high penalty, says consultant Wohltmann. “You can’t actually live on so little money.” At the same time, he observes that “sanctions have never led to motivation, only to fear.” The current tightening of the rules is already causing many who seek advice from BALZ to panic. “As a rule, this triggers even more crises in people.”
Incomprehensible messages
Andreas Wallbaum also says that he always feels the stress and fear in the people who come to his consultation. In the “Südblock”, a bar at the Kottbusser Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Wallbaum volunteers to advise citizens’ benefit recipients every Tuesday afternoon. In the neighborhood he is known as the “Hartzer Roller”.
At the beginning of the millennium, he himself had to deal with job centers as a “customer”. After this experience, he became a consultant, initially for the unemployment association. When the project funding soon dried up, he became self-employed. He toured the area on a motorized tricycle and offered his mobile social advice. He became the “Hartzer Roller”. Today he is retired and counseling only takes place on an inpatient basis in the “South Block”.
The worries that people come to his consultation with? “People receive messages that they don’t understand,” says Wallbaum to taz. “We’ll then look at it together and check what needs to be done now.” For example, whether a contradiction makes sense. Because in some cases the notices are “simply incorrect or incomplete”.
Communication with authorities is rarely easy to understand. But for people who rely on job center services, it’s about their existence. It makes a big difference whether an attachment was supposedly filled out incorrectly or not.
Wallbaum reports that with the introduction of citizen’s benefit, the stress and fear among those affected decreased somewhat because they no longer had to fear being forced into a precarious job. In this respect, it is particularly explosive that the placement priority, which was originally introduced with Hartz IV and abolished with citizens’ money, is now to be reintroduced.
If the coalition’s plans go according to plans, the tightening measures will be decided in the Bundestag in the spring. Not only on the part of the Left Party and the social associations, but also at the SPD base great resistance to the reform plans.