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Inflation: Calls for a rapid increase in social assistance

Inflation: Calls for a rapid increase in social assistance

On Friday, Caritas President Michael Landau referred to the announcement by Energieallianz Austria on Wednesday that it would increase the prices for electricity and gas in Vienna and Lower Austria from September 1st (and not only on January 1st). In particular, the poverty conference called for a reduction in housing costs. “If index adjustments, i.e. price increases for electricity and gas, are now brought forward, then index adjustments, increases in social benefits, minimum pensions, etc. must also be brought forward. That should be coupled,” emphasized Landau, according to Kathpress. He fears another wave of poverty. One-time payments would not be enough: “Inflation does not just hit once, but with every bill, in the supermarket, with every rent and every fee.”

Poverty conference urges rapid reforms

The poverty conference on Friday meanwhile pushed for relief in housing costs, for example through improved housing assistance, which has so far been given “too little attention” in the inflation debate, it said in a broadcast. “The deduction of housing benefits and the cuts in living expenses in social assistance lead to massive problems. Women and children have too little to live on,” says the network. In order to pay their rent, those affected would have to use up what would actually be the most basic means of subsistence – “starving for the rent,” according to the NGO. Further reforms are urgently needed in social assistance, “above all the granting and increase of housing assistance”. Measures to increase unemployment benefits have also been lacking so far – “but they are central to combating poverty,” criticizes the poverty conference.

Calls for improvements in social assistance also came from the federal states on Friday. “With the introduction of social assistance, maximum payment limits were introduced, that’s the problem for those receiving social assistance, we’ll have to improve that,” said Carinthia’s social officer Beate Prettner (SPÖ) in the Ö1 “Mittagsjournal”. The amounts will have to be “lifted up”. Because inflation is pushing the affected group of people particularly into poverty.

Tyrol’s Social Affairs Minister Gabriele Fischer (Greens) said it was “really necessary” to reconsider the Social Welfare Act. Social assistance is a legal right and must therefore be set higher.

According to Ö1, the office of Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) said that the drastic rise in prices would have to be taken into account when social assistance was adjusted.

Source: Nachrichten

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