Ex-headsof Labor Offices condemn unemployment benefits
**The income comparison between low-wage earners and social welfare recipients is depressing for the former, finds Heinrich Alt, who was a board member of the Federal Employment Agency until 2015. While prices and social welfare payments have significantly increased, wages have lagged behind. Even from the SPD come critical voices.
Former board members of the Federal Employment Agency Frank-Jürgen Weise and Heinrich Alt lament serious problems with social welfare. "There are 260,000 young people between 25 and 45 in Germany who have not worked for a longer period of time, despite fulfilling all the criteria for employment," Weise told "Spiegel". "That's not acceptable in this dimension." Weise was CEO of the Federal Employment Agency from 2004 to 2017.
"The Jobcenters are bogged down by bureaucracy," he said. "The system is completely opaque. It's no longer manageable." Together with Alt, he proposed relieving the Jobcenters. Alt, who sat on the board of the Federal Employment Agency from 2002 to 2015, said that social welfare had "an acceptance problem". Someone who works but earns little wonders: "What does a social welfare recipient get? What would I get?"
The comparison, says Alt, is depressing for many. Between 2021 and 2024, long-term unemployed people would have received 26 percent more, but wages had only risen by about 12 percent in this period. Prices had risen by 17 percent.
SPD Bundestag member Johannes Arlt from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern also sees the acceptance of social welfare in danger. "No one understands why someone who goes to bed at sunrise and spends the whole day on the sofa should get less than someone who works in the pigsty at the same time," Arlt told the magazine. "Today, my voters accuse us of tolerating laziness, although labor is being sought everywhere."**
The proposal to alleviate the burden on Jobcenters was made by former Federal Employment Agency board members Frank-Jürgen Weise and Heinrich Alt, who expressed concerns about the bureaucracy and opacity of the system. In light of this, it would be beneficial for policies to focus on addressing these issues at the Federal Labor Agency to improve the overall perception and effectiveness of citizen's income programs.
As the income gap between low-wage earners and social welfare recipients continues to widen, there has been a growing concern within politics about the need for reforms at the Federal Labor Agency to ensure a fair and sustainable citizens' income scheme, which could potentially stimulate job market participation and boost economic growth.
