Problems of the sample calculations: citizen’s income or wages – which brings more?

Work is no longer worthwhile, the Union argues against the citizen’s income – and provides calculation examples according to which workers would be worse off. But is that true? A fact check.

One thing is difficult to deny: the tone in the civil income dispute has become rough. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil accuses the Union of “lies” in the style of Donald Trump. The CDU/CSU stand by their rejection of citizens’ income, which they could theoretically prevent in the Bundesrat. And they calculate that the unemployed would often be treated the same or even better than the employed.

Is the accusation true that working with the new citizens’ income no longer pays off financially?

It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Hartz IV system or the planned citizen’s allowance in the future: anyone who works will always have a higher income than someone who doesn’t. So that means: The so-called “wage gap”, which is now so often talked about, will remain in principle. This is ensured by the so-called “additional earnings regulations”, which are to apply now as well as in the future. Even citizens’ money critics do not deny that these “distance rules” should remain in force.

However, this does not definitively answer the tricky question of whether working is really worthwhile in the perception of every low-income earner: Because for a plus on the account, a plus in effort has to be made. Only: This dilemma has existed for a long time. From the expert’s point of view, it is difficult to blame the new citizens’ income for this. The scientist Kerstin Bruckmeier from the Institute for Labor Market and Vocational Research does not assume that this will have a significant effect “on the job offer in the low-income sector”.

How does the Union come up with its calculations that the unemployed will soon be better off than the employed?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re single or married and with children – in some Union bills, low earners even have hundreds of euros less in their accounts at the end of a citizen’s benefit month than unemployed people. Several experts explained that the CDU/CSU could only come to this astonishing result because they are hiding something ARD Capital Studio.

Among other things, the equation often does not include the fact that minimum wage earners are also entitled to housing benefits, child allowances and other benefits – which, however, do not appear in the bill, to name just one example. Some of the graphics that caused a sensation on social media were based on figures from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), his “Erstversion” but with reference to “misinterpretations” from the page and announced a revision.

Conclusion: In many of the arithmetic examples that are circulating, simplification comes at the expense of accuracy. In individual cases, i.e. if the state in expensive Munich pays the single unemployed person the apartment in full, his support could be close to the salary of a 12-euro mini-jobber, experts say. But that is rather the exceptional case. Arithmetic examples are completely misleading when the impression is created that the citizen’s income generally ensures that the employed will be worse off than the unemployed in the future.

Does that mean that the criticism of citizen income is completely unjustified?

Citizens’ income can certainly not let all accusations drain away casually: If the basic security for the unemployed is to be increased by around 50 euros, then that can certainly reduce the incentive to work. Science speaks of the “welfare state dilemma” here. But the fact that this increase is necessary in this crisis situation and in view of the high inflation to maintain social peace is also seen in the Union. According to experts, it is not to be expected that low earners will stop working as a result.

But that doesn’t mean that the other points of criticism have been wiped off the table, as there are: the easing of sanctions in the course of the introduction of the citizen’s income or the very high limit of the assets that a recipient of the citizen’s income may dispose of, according to the Federal Court of Auditors at 60,000 euros. Since she is not alone in her criticism that too much is being promoted and too little is being asked for, the Union will certainly not back down easily on this point.