Renaming of unemployment benefits
The head of the employment agency advocates moving away from the term “Hartz IV”.
Designations such as “Hartz IV recipient” usually have negative connotations. Therefore, employment agency boss Detlef Scheele welcomes the plans to rename unemployment benefits. (icon picture)
© Ralf Hirschberger/zb/DPA
The term “Hartz IV” does not have a good reputation. The head of the employment agency is in favor of a new name. But it is not about a “false labeling”.
With a view to the plans of the traffic light coalition to reform the basic security, the head of the employment agency, Detlef Scheele, has spoken out in favor of overcoming the term Hartz IV. “If we could find a new name, that would be good,” he told the newspapers of the Funke media group.
If “the term Hartz IV were out of the world, both the unemployed and the employees in the job centers would be helped,” argued the chairman of the Federal Employment Agency. “Part of the problem is the attributions on the subject of Hartz IV, which do not apply.”
Ampel wants to replace “Hartz IV” with “citizen’s allowance”.
Hartz IV is the colloquial term for the basic security for job seekers, which is officially called unemployment benefit II. The traffic light coalition wants to replace Hartz IV with a “citizen’s allowance”. Scheele commented positively on the plans. In his view, it’s not primarily about a change in image, “although it would be desirable,” he said. “But there are also improvements in the matter, so it’s not a misnomer.”
Scheele referred to the planned “participation agreements” with the recipients of the future citizens’ allowance. “In it, a joint plan is developed, with which steps it can be possible to leave the basic security again. The citizen’s income thus creates more equality,” he explained. “The current integration agreement, on the other hand, provides for instruction on legal consequences and threatens sanctions if obligations are not fulfilled.”
It will probably take a while before the reforms planned by the SPD, Greens and FDP are in place. “This is a major reform,” Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil said recently. “Therefore, we will prepare this law very carefully.”