Citizens’ benefit recipients can in future receive a bonus of 1,000 euros when they take up a job. This is provided for in the amendment to the law to modernize unemployment insurance and job promotion, which the cabinet passed last week. At the weekend, Robert Habeck’s (Greens) Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed that “one-off start-up financing for employable long-term unemployed people in the amount of 1,000 euros is provided if they take up employment that is subject to social security contributions and meets their needs.” According to the text of the law, the payment is subject to conditions. The employment relationship must last at least one year and must not be subsidized. “In this way, the acceptance of long-term regular employment relationships is to be strengthened,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs. “Long-term unemployed people should actually be able to overcome and leave the basic state security, and an early fall back into the social system should be prevented.” In addition, the bonus forms a counterweight to the “withdrawal of transfers”, meaning that citizen’s benefit benefits are reduced if they take up a low-paying job . “Employments with lower incomes are becoming unattractive due to high deductions from citizens’ benefits, child allowances and housing benefits,” it said. “The premium shows a way out here.” The state also hopes for savings. The new procedure also pays off for the general public, because the state would achieve relevant cost savings: “through positive fiscal effects due to saved services and additional tax and contribution income.” The proposal comes from the Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) in Nuremberg and is part of the coalition’s growth initiative. The SPD, Greens and FDP are “amicably” behind the draft, which is also called the SGB III Modernization Act. But that is apparently not the case. The social policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Martin Rosemann, told the newspaper “Bild”: “The start-up financing was an express wish of Robert Habeck. As specialist politicians in the SPD, we share the concerns that the Ministry of Labor has always expressed.” Because there is more and more criticism from the traffic lights, “there is little to suggest sticking to it.” The Social Security Code III (SGB) regulates employment promotion. The new start-up financing is introduced there in paragraph 16b. This makes it clear that the money can only be granted once within two years. Economists have different opinions on the plans. They are propagated by the Regensburg chair holder Enzo Weber, who, as head of research at the IAB, came up with the idea. More on the topic Hubertus Bardt, the managing director and head of the scientific department at the employer-related Institute of German Economy (IW) in Cologne, is more skeptical. “Such a bonus should act as an incentive. However, this does not eliminate the fundamental problem that citizens’ money severely limits the incentive to work in certain situations and that extra work is then hardly worth it,” Bardt told the F.A.Z. “Promotion – like the bonus – must also include demands, i.e. the threat of sanctions if there is a lack of effort to take up work.”
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