Corona has exacerbated the precarious situation, especially for single parents. Many women became unemployed in the pandemic. “From February 2020 to March 2021, the number of women without a job rose by 40 percent and for men by 25 percent,” said Secretary General Anna Parr.
“We have to make sure that people have enough money for rents and heating costs despite losing their jobs,” the President of Caritas Austria, Michael Landau, addressed to the federal government at a press conference in Salzburg. Now it is a matter of ensuring a future-proof, poverty-proof welfare state. Landau called for a reform of the new social welfare, Austria-wide uniform needs-based minimum rates, a permanent increase in unemployment benefits on a living basis, maintenance of the emergency assistance and a redesign of the family bonus so that children can benefit regardless of the income of their parents.
Source From: Nachrichten
