Citizens’ money: Government decides on stricter requirements – monthly reporting requirement

Citizens’ benefit recipients should be looked after more closely by the job center. The Federal Cabinet approved a template from the Federal Ministry of Labor. Instead of semi-annually, unemployed people can now appear monthly.

The Federal Cabinet has decided on stricter reporting requirements for citizens’ benefit recipients. According to the wishes of the traffic light coalition, the job centers should be able to summon them for a personal interview every month if this is necessary for integration into the labor market, said government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Wednesday in Berlin. In doing so, the federal government wants to “strengthen the obligation to cooperate and thus ensure more commitment and more successful placement in the labor market”.

A so-called formulation aid from the Federal Ministry of Labor was decided upon, which will now be forwarded to the traffic light factions in the Bundestag. This is part of the “growth initiative” decided by the government in the summer. Hebestreit said: “For more economic power, a greater supply of work is needed. That’s why it’s important, among other things, to get more people who still receive citizens’ benefit into work.”

The traffic light coalition is currently tightening the rules on citizens’ money as part of its “growth initiative” for the economy. Among other things, benefit recipients must expect their rates to be reduced by 30 percent if they refuse reasonable work, training or integration measures without a good reason. With the replacement of Hartz IV by citizens’ money, the regulations for recipients were relaxed. This caused heated debates, to which the traffic light coalition is now reacting.

Criticism of the reporting requirement

It is currently unclear whether the new reporting requirement will actually come and for whom. There is considerable resistance to the draft from the states and associations, which the Federal Council still has to approve.

As noted in an appendix to the draft, the federal states see a monthly reporting requirement as “an inappropriate interference with the local exercise of discretion and the organization of the job centers”. The German District Association and the German Association of Cities made similarly critical statements.

It is also pointed out that the Federal Employment Agency (BA) would prefer to limit the group of people affected to those who are unemployed and entitled to benefits in the first twelve months. This group is also a particular focus for the federal government because regular personal contact could potentially prevent long-term benefit receipt.

Unlike the BA, the traffic light can also imagine a reporting obligation for other benefit recipients, for example for graduates of labor market policy measures as well as integration or professional language courses. It is said that compulsory personal discussions should also be considered for young people or “people with more complex problems”. The federal government has also asked the Ministry of Justice for a legal review, the result of which is still pending, it is said.

AFP/epd/krö

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