At first glance, it seems astonishing: for years the number of unemployed fell, the employment agencies were almost entirely successful, and companies recruited people from each other. And yet there are around 860,000 people in Germany who cannot make a living from their work or cannot support their families and therefore receive additional money from the job center. They are the so-called toppers.
What is typical for you? Who will make the climb and why? The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg examined these questions on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation. The study will be published this Wednesday. It deals indirectly with a central plan of the new coalition. The traffic light wants to pave the way out of state aid with the help of a citizen’s money and reduce the number of long-term unemployed, which has grown strongly due to Corona.
According to the IAB, children increase the risk of having to rely on supplementary help from the state, the basic security. Single parents in particular often get into this situation; more than every sixth single parent with a job (mostly women) is top-up. You usually need a full-time position to do it alone; part-time is not enough. But this is particularly difficult to cope with as a single parent because children have to be looked after and there is not enough offer for this at daycare centers or after school lessons.
The state takes most of the work from those who work
But even with families with both parents, children often mean that you won’t be spared going to the job center. This, too, often has to do with looking after the offspring and with at least one partner not working or not working fully. Over the years 2010 to 2019, the IAB experts observed who made it out of the basic income support thanks to better or more work (“promotion”) and who lost their job (“descent”).
Result: couples with children succeed in advancement much less often than couples without children. Mini-jobs seldom offer advancement prospects; part-time and full-time jobs are the better way up. A new partner can also inspire not only the relationship, but also one’s own working life. In any case, according to the study, 40 percent of them lead out of the basic security.
It is noticeable that many mothers and fathers work, although the job center in the Hartz IV system often deducts a large part of their income from state aid. This applies to almost a third of all families who receive basic security. According to the law, families can keep 100 euros from what they have earned, 80 percent of the rest are credited.
That means, for example: Anyone who earns 450 euros a month through a mini job will ultimately only have 170 euros of that. Nevertheless, 40 percent of all single parents who receive Hartz IV work. “Single parents are highly motivated to be gainfully employed,” says Anette Stein, who heads the education department at the Bertelsmann Foundation. The new traffic light government wants to change the additional income rules according to the coalition agreement and leave people more of what they have earned themselves.
As a consequence of the study, the Bertelsmann Foundation calls for better support for families through basic child benefits, a reduction in mini-jobs and a further expansion of childcare in day-care centers and schools. Then the parents could go to work with a clear conscience.