Opinion
The debate about the citizens’ allowance shows how depraved Germany is
Recipients of citizens’ money are doing too well, says the Chancellor. Most of the Germans agree to him. Is that just ignorance or simply social cold?
Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants to save on citizenship. “I am still firmly convinced that ten percent have to be saved in this system,” he said in an interview this week.
Merz speaks Germany from the soul. According to a current one I think 86 percent of those entitled to vote that harder sanctions are a step in the right direction when it comes to citizenship.
Making life a little more difficult to make life a bit more fashionable. It doesn’t make sense.
Bullshit is a debate about citizens’ money
Federal Minister of Labor Bärbel Bas called the current debate about the German social system recently “Bullshit”. “Now such a tongue strike comes in that the economy does not run because the social systems are too expensive”, she said that star.
She had to hold up there, says Bas. And she is right. The show that Merz is pulling off and which is a large part of the population shows how deprivting Germany is. People without a job are grasped that they are unemployed. A state that means great shame for many affected people and makes social participation massively difficult.
Single people receive 563 euros a month. This is 18.16 euros. For food, clothing, electricity, internet, leisure. Your rent is taken over, but a good life is not possible. Well, many Germans seem to think. Anyone who receives citizen benefit should suffer.
The debate also shows how poorly informed the Germans are when it comes to the big social issues. In 2024, the costs for the German social system amounted to around 1.35 trillion euros. That is about 30 percent of total German economic output (gross domestic product). That seems a lot and it is: in a European comparison we are in third place behind France and Finland.
However, only a fraction of the social spending is on it for the citizens’ allowance: 4.2 percent or 56.5 billion euros we cost ourselves the basic security. We spend 29.1 percent (391.5 billion euros) for pension insurance and 25.4 percent (341.7 billion euros) for health insurance.
Why not shorten here? The government of the population apparently does not want to expect that.
Merz is a hypocrite
There is approval for another measure: the increase in taxes to high income. Two thirds (65 percent) of Germans consider such an increase in taxes to the right means, including two thirds of the Union supporters (66 percent).
Such a measure would be socially acceptable. However, the Union strictly opposes tax increases. Merz ‘under -complex view of things: “The welfare state, as we have it today, can no longer be financed with what we do economically.”
This statement is also nonsense. The social expenditure in the multiplied last decades. However, the social service rate (the ratio of social spending on GDP) increased only minimally: from 28.6 percent in 2005 to 30 percent today.
Demographic change actually makes it more difficult to finance the welfare state. But the problem shouldn’t Citizen serve. Neither ideologically nor financially.
Source: Stern
