Anyone who does not take a job will have their citizen’s allowance completely cut off. CDU man Carsten Linnemann received a lot of criticism for his proposal, but it seems to have hit a nerve.
It is unclear whether the number is a hundred thousand or even hundreds of thousands. In any case, the debate is about a significant number of people receiving citizen’s allowance who could in principle work but are not taking a job. CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann has received a lot of criticism for his proposal to completely cut the benefits of people receiving citizen’s allowance if they refuse to take up a job.
Apparently, the politician has hit a nerve. 56 percent of Germans think it is right to completely cut off the citizen’s allowance for those who refuse to work, according to a Forsa survey for the star 40 percent think this is too extensive, 4 percent do not express an opinion.
Workers are in favor of tough sanctions on citizen’s allowance
East Germans (62 percent), workers (73 percent) and voters who see themselves as “right” (80 percent) are particularly in favor of a tougher stance against those who refuse to work. But “centre” voters also share this view (65 percent). Only those who see themselves as “left” politically reject the plans (64 percent).
Accordingly, 78 percent of AfD supporters, 71 percent of FDP supporters and 68 percent of CDU/CSU supporters are in favor of Linnemann’s proposal. But 61 percent of voters in Sahra Wagenknecht’s coalition are also in favor of it. Only supporters of the Greens (75 percent) and the SPD (58 percent) would think a complete deletion would go too far.
A further analysis makes it clear how difficult the issue is for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party. Forsa also determined the views of voters who have turned away from the SPD since the 2021 federal election: 57 percent of them also say that a complete cut for those who refuse to work would be the right thing to do.
Forsa boss Manfred Güllner, the results are not surprising. In previous surveys, a majority of Germans had already expressed reservations about the Citizen’s Allowance in its current form. “Only a minority in the green/left camp supports the concept of the Citizen’s Allowance,” says Güllner, “because of the widespread scepticism, the SPD cannot benefit from the fact that it had repressed its Hartz IV trauma with the Citizen’s Allowance.”
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for the star and RTL Deutschland on August 1st and 2nd, 2024 by telephone. Data basis: 1001 respondents. This makes the survey representative. Statistical error tolerance: +/- 3 percentage points
Source: Stern
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