Citizens’ allowance for Ukrainian refugees: This is the wrong way

Opinion

The Citizen’s Allowance is one of those political projects where the following applies: well-intentioned does not necessarily mean well-executed. Introduced in January 2023 and celebrated by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil as “the biggest welfare state reform in 20 years,” it was intended to remedy the weaknesses of Hartz IV.

Instead, it has become a constant source of political excitement. Most recently, CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann has

The lazy unemployed person is a myth

The image of the lazy, unwilling worker who prefers to relax in the hammock of the welfare state is difficult to substantiate with facts. If you ask job center bosses about total refusers, they speak of a number in the low single digits. Even in the Hartz IV era, the rate of sanctions for complete refusal was therefore very low.

The situation is different with a second major accusation in connection with the Citizen’s Allowance: that it is wrong and unfair that war refugees from Ukraine can immediately receive it instead of falling under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.

A gesture of solidarity with delicate consequences

This regulation has been in effect since June 2022 and was intended as a gesture of solidarity. People who had to flee a war that violated international law should not only be offered good social security, but also the opportunity to find work quickly. Asylum seekers are not allowed to start work until six months later at the earliest.

In practice, this has not worked. Of the more than one million people who have fled from Ukraine to Germany since the beginning of the war, only around a quarter are employed and only around 20 percent are in jobs that require social insurance contributions. This is despite the fact that refugees from Ukraine are, on average, more highly qualified than migrants from other regions and despite the fact that there is a shortage of workers in Germany.

What other countries do differently

The explanation that there are many Ukrainian mothers with small children who simply cannot work is invalidated by international comparison. In countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, but also Denmark and the Netherlands, the proportion of Ukrainian refugees in work is significantly higher, in some cases over 70 percent.

A study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which is close to the SPD (title: “With open arms”), comes to the conclusion that this is partly due to financial reasons. While in Poland and the Czech Republic the already low benefits for Ukrainian refugees are cut again after a few months, in Germany the receipt of the citizen’s allowance is basically unlimited. A second hurdle is bureaucracy. Countries like Denmark pay similarly high benefits to Germany, but they find work more quickly instead of relying on lengthy language courses first.

Discontent is growing not only among locals

Discontent is growing among the population. Not only among the locals, many of whom cannot understand why refugees are immediately given the same benefits as people who were born here. But also among migrants who came earlier, worked hard for their integration – literally – and now have the impression that everything seems to be “given” to Ukrainians.

The “mood” factor

Moods should never be the sole basis for decisions. But they must be taken seriously. Politics can only work if a majority of society is prepared to support it – at least in the medium term.

But what does it mean to take criticism seriously? Two things: people must have the feeling that their criticism is being heard. And secondly, that it is being examined whether it is justified.

If the receipt of the citizen’s allowance does not help Ukrainian refugees to find work more quickly, this is not only a problem for the host society, but also for the refugees themselves. Integration into the labor market is a key to arriving in a society and being accepted by it. If this does not happen, rejection and social tensions will grow and be fueled. This does not help anyone.

The responsibility lies not with the refugees, but with those in government. The special regulation for immediate receipt of citizen’s allowance must be urgently reconsidered. At the same time, bureaucratic hurdles that prevent people from taking up work must be removed as quickly as possible.

The message must be: we will help anyone who wants to settle here with all the means at our disposal. We offer protection and help to those who cannot work. But anyone who believes that they can benefit from a well-developed network of social services without making any effort is in the wrong place in Germany.