New citizen money: “Hartz IV was a stamp on the forehead”

Hartz IV was often more humiliation than encouragement. With the new citizens’ allowance, the federal government is not only trying to get rid of a stigmatizing stamp. However, the new system still has to prove itself.

Finally: Hartz IV has had its day. Whereby: This term and much that was associated with it has never done society a particularly great service. Hartz IV was a stamp on many people’s foreheads that was difficult to wipe off. More humiliation than encouragement – it is precisely this mistake that the federal government wants to correct at last.

Finally update the system

The claim with which it does this is worthy of all honor: Anyone who reads the draft law on citizen income passed in the cabinet today more closely will at least recognize the intention not only to invent a new stamp for an old system, but to finally renew this system itself .

For example, through more eye level and less fear: The fact that the unemployed stay longer in their current home and are allowed to keep more of their savings creates a certain degree of security – even if the certainty of a secure job is gone. The fact that the people in the letters from the job center are no longer immediately threatened with sanctions lays the basis for trust in order to work together on a return to gainful employment, as provided for by the law on citizen income.

Living on just under 20 euros a day

This is probably what most people who lose their jobs are interested in. Even if representatives from the economy, such as Employers’ President Rainer Dulger or Craftsman’s President Hans-Peter Wollseifer, accuse them of the opposite when they claim that the new basic income reduces the incentive for many to work.

They sketch the picture of a comfortable social hammock into which unemployed people can happily fall in view of the planned increase in standard rates and relaxed sanctions. These cases do exist, but in general there can be no question of them, especially not in times of inflation. Citizens’ income may sound more pleasant than Hartz IV – but living on just under 20 euros a day is still not pleasant.

New system has to prove itself

In view of this, the argument that work for low-income earners would no longer be worthwhile with the new basic income is also not against rising standard rates, but rather for higher wages and more appreciation for employees. Apparently, not all employers have understood this.

Nevertheless, the new system has to prove itself in the coming years: it is still unclear whether the employees in the job centers will take the big step and succeed in integrating the long-term unemployed in particular into the labor market in the long term through further training.

However, it is always worth a try – the time has come for a real system change. Finally.