Citizen's allowance recipients should accept a commute of up to three hours
Long commuting times should no longer be a reason for social welfare recipients to reject jobs: The federal government apparently plans to shift the threshold of acceptability. Overtime and working in retirement should be financially more worthwhile.
Social welfare recipients will reportedly have to accept jobs with a daily commute of up to three hours in the future. According to a report in "Bild am Sonntag," this is a measure catalog that the government coalition has agreed on in their negotiations for the Growth Initiative. Currently, a commute time of 2.5 hours is considered acceptable. In the future, a commute time of three hours (one way) should be acceptable for a daily working time of more than six hours. For lower working hours, it will still be 2.5 hours for the commute. Additionally, job centers are supposed to search for jobs within a 50-kilometer radius of a social welfare recipient's residence.
According to the report, the traffic light coalition also plans to make overtime and working beyond retirement age more attractive. This would mean that no taxes and duties would have to be paid on overtime hours. In companies with collective bargaining agreements, this would apply for overtime hours above 34 weekly working hours, and in companies without collective bargaining agreements from the 41st working hour.
The report also states that the regular working time increase will be encouraged by the traffic light coalition. If a part-time employee increases their working hours and receives a bonus from their employer, this bonus should be tax-deductible. The tax deduction amount still needs to be clarified.
One-time payment for work in retirement
For companies with collective bargaining agreements, there should be exceptions to the statutory maximum working hours, the report adds. Furthermore, it should still be possible to agree on trust-based working hours, with which employees and companies can waive recording of working hours.
Anyone who wants to continue working as a pensioner should not only be able to receive the employer's contribution to unemployment and pension insurance, but also be able to choose a pension top-up bonus. In this case, employees working beyond the retirement age would receive a one-time payment in the amount of their pension, which they would otherwise have received.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD, Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the FDP, and Economics Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens made a breakthrough in their long-running budget negotiations for 2025 and a growth package on Friday. However, the debate between the government parties about the budget continues.
- The Traffic light coalition, comprised of the SPD, FDP, and Greens, is considering making pensioners financially incentivized to continue working, proposing a one-time payment for any additional work beyond retirement age.
- The federal government, in their push to encourage employment among social welfare recipients, is considering expanding the acceptable daily commute time to three hours for jobs offering more than six hours of work daily.
- As part of their Growth Initiative negotiations, the coalition government plans to exempt overtime hours from taxes and duties in companies with collective bargaining agreements, starting from 34 weekly working hours, as well as in companies without an agreement starting from the 41st working hour.
