For everyone who sees the Hartz system as a sin of the German welfare state, a dream could soon come true. The traffic light coalition in Berlin wants to completely abolish the sanctions against Hartz IV recipients who are able to work by the end of the year. A first draft law from the Ministry of Labor has been available since the end of February and is due to go through the cabinet in March. Department head Hubertus Heil (SPD) is thus entering one of the hottest areas of dispute in the Hartz reforms, the money cuts against Hartz IV recipients if, for example, they miss appointments, do not accept reasonable jobs or break off training abruptly. The job centers could no longer punish all of this for the time being.
It’s not just about a few months without sanctions, the experiences from this time should flow into the citizen’s income. This should permanently replace the basic security next year. If things are going well on the labor market without sanctions from the job center, this would be a strong argument for cutting back on the catalog of criminal omissions in the case of citizen income, even if there should still be sanctions in the case of citizen income. The previous guiding principle of “promoting and demanding” would be realigned, the demands would have to do largely without the threat of consequences.
However, opposition to the abolition of the sanctions, the so-called sanctions moratorium, is stirring – and to a remarkable extent. First there is the Union in the Bundestag. “What’s the point of duties to cooperate if they can’t be enforced through sanctions? Nothing. That can’t be done with us,” says the deputy chairman of the Union faction, Hermann Gröhe (CDU). The suspension of the sanctions is also sending the wrong signal to those who naturally comply with their obligations to cooperate, says the former Minister of Health. For Gröhe, the moratorium is a step towards an unconditional basic income, i.e. a basic state salary without prerequisites.
But it’s not just the always Hartz-loyal Union that objects. In statements on the draft law from the beginning of March, authorities, researchers and associations also show their skepticism: The Federal Employment Agency, of all people, writes that they reject an “interim complete suspension” of the sanctions, which would have to implement the law first. The agency explains that in the course of the corona pandemic, the assets of Hartz IV recipients are no longer checked anyway. If the sanctions are now also dropped, this could “be perceived as unfair” – both for other people in the basic security system and for the “financing community of taxpayers”.
The Greens are the driving force behind the lifting of the sanctions
The Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research (IAB), the scientific arm of the employment agency, sounds similar. The German Association of Cities says that it considers the plans to be “not expedient”. Even the Social Association of Germany, a tireless critic of the Hartz sanctions and of neoliberalism, writes that financial consequences must “continue to be possible” as a last resort.
The sanctions had already been largely relaxed in recent years. The Federal Constitutional Court restricted them at the end of 2019, and since then the authority has been allowed to cut a maximum of 30 percent of state support, even in the case of notorious refusers – and not everything, as has happened in rare extreme cases. In 2020, the asset check was then basically eliminated, and the job center will initially assume the housing costs without complaint, even if the apartment is actually considered too expensive. Most recently, 1.4 percent of Hartz IV recipients who were able to work were sanctioned, according to the latest available figures from November 2021.
The Greens are the driving force behind the lifting of the sanctions. They have prevailed over both Labor Minister Heil and the FDP, both of whom want to keep their leverage, especially the FDP. “We’re sticking to the coalition agreement and supporting the sanctions moratorium,” says Jens Teutrine, spokesman for citizens’ allowances for the FDP parliamentary group. But: “I don’t think that citizen income without sanctions as a last resort.” There is no “automatism towards freedom from sanctions for citizen income,” says Teutrine, she is only “an intermediate step until the sanctions are reorganized”. You could also say: A gift to the Greens with an expiry date.
It is uncertain whether the Greens will ultimately be able to accept the gift, despite the coalition’s harmony. If the Union has to agree in the Bundesrat, nothing should come of the gift. The Ministry of Labor says that the Bundesrat does not have to agree, but the Union is still examining this question. The CDU and CSU in the Bundesrat could definitely delay the project – and thus shrink the year without Hartz sanctions agreed in the coalition agreement to an autumn without warning letters from the office.