The CDU passes a resolution on “citizens’ money”, which also involves removing benefits for “total refusers”. An inquiry to the employment agency shows: This only affects a few people.
The CDU wants to sharpen its profile – and has therefore announced that it will change citizens’ money. The party wants to “abolish it in its current form” and rename it “New Basic Security”, as it says in a draft resolution for today’s meeting of the CDU federal executive board.
The current cooperation between the state and the citizen’s benefit recipient is non-binding, said CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann at the press conference following the meeting.
The party is therefore paying attention to sanctions. “By suspending sanctions, the traffic light has deprived job center employees of the means to demand this legitimate claim from taxpayers,” the draft resolution states. Sanctions should therefore be enforced more quickly, easily and less bureaucratically.
Constitutional Court ruling from 2019
“If a basic security recipient who is able to work refuses work that is reasonable for him (“total refuser”) without any objective reason, it should be assumed in the future that he is not in need,” it continues. That would mean a cut of 100 percent of the benefit.
As early as November 2019, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that a 100 percent cut was not permitted. In order to secure the minimum subsistence level protected by the Basic Law, the sanctions must not go too far. Cuts of 30 percent are justifiable, but 60 or 100 percent are not.
“Karlsruhe speaks of those who are really in need,” said CDU member Rainer Schlegel at the press conference. He was President of the Federal Social Court until February 2024. Recipients of citizens’ benefit have a duty to cooperate and it is always about doing reasonable work. In the case of so-called “total refusers”, it is therefore permissible to cancel the benefits.
Only a few cases of refusal
A spokesman for the Federal Employment Agency said at the request of tagesschau.de with the fact that there are no exact figures for “total refusers”. “We cannot statistically evaluate how often a reduction was determined because someone rejected work,” said the spokesman.
However, the reason for the reduction is statistically recorded: “refusal to take up or continue a job, training, measure or a subsidized employment relationship”, which also takes further training and qualifications into account. It shows that there were a total of 13,838 cases in the first eleven months of 2023.
Reductions due to a refusal are rare, according to the spokesman for the Federal Employment Agency. “In general, it can be stated that more than 80 percent of the reductions have recently been determined due to failure to report.” Failure to report occurs when recipients of citizen’s benefit do not appear at the provider’s office or at a medical or psychological examination appointment without proof of an important reason.
From January to November 2023, benefits were reduced in a total of 201,465 cases. Around 5.5 million people were entitled to receive citizen’s benefit in the months in question.
Sabine Henkel, ARD Berlin, tagesschau, March 18, 2024 2:30 p.m