BA: Can no longer stop citizen's income increase
The citizen's income will increase in the new year. The FDP and CDU/CSU want to reverse this. The responsible federal agency is now playing it down. The train has left the station - for technical reasons alone.
According to the Federal Employment Agency (BA), it is no longer technically possible to waive an increase in the citizen's allowance at the turn of the year, as demanded by the FDP and CDU/CSU, among others. "The payment processes are already underway," a BA spokesperson in Nuremberg told the Funke Mediengruppe. "It is no longer technically possible to implement values for January 2024 other than those published so far."
According to the Federal Government, the more than five million recipients of citizens' income in Germany will receive an average of around twelve percent more money on January 1, 2024 - single people will then receive 563 euros. However, the debate on the amount of the citizen's income has flared up again due to the budget problems.
Both CDU leader Friedrich Merz and CSU leader Markus Söder consider the increase to be unreasonably high. The FDP, the party with the traffic light system, is also pushing for a reassessment of the standard rates in view of the slowdown in inflation.
In a statement at the beginning of the week, Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil called it "morally irresponsible and incompatible with the constitution" to deny those affected an adjustment of the standard rates. A spokesperson for Heil emphasized that, on the basis of current law, there is no room for discretion when it comes to updating the standard rates in the coming year.
A possible waiver of the increase in the citizens' allowance is being debated, among other things, in order to plug at least part of the 17 billion euro hole in the federal budget following the ruling of the Constitutional Court. However, the CDU/CSU are also fundamentally critical of the increase, which they believe would make it less lucrative for many employees to go to work.
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The traffic light coalition, consisting of the SPD, Green Party, and FDP, is currently reviewing the standard rates of the citizen's income due to the CDU/CSU and FDP's concerns about the increase. Despite these calls, the Federal Employment Agency (BA) has stated that technically, it's no longer possible to reverse the increase in the citizen's allowance for January 2024. This decision falls under the purview of social policy, a critical component of our nation's social systems.
Source: www.ntv.de
