Union is agitating against citizens’ money: There is nothing more than populism

The CDU is agitating against supposedly work-shy people, who form a tiny group. It does not offer a conservative social package.

The CDU is planning drastic cuts in citizens’ money Photo: Metodi Popow/imago

With the concept of a “new basic security” the CDU would like to abolish citizens’ money. The concept largely envisages gradual tightening: an asset check should be carried out from the first day instead of after 12 months, and the limits for so-called protective assets should be lowered. Tougher sanctions are particularly important, for example in the event of missed deadlines. The CDU ignores the fact that mental illnesses are often the reason for this.

The greatest excitement was caused by the demand that state support be completely withdrawn indefinitely if someone refuses to accept “reasonable” work. “We assume that total objectors do not need any support,” explained CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann.

One is reminded of the sentence: “There is no right to be lazy” by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) in 2001. It was Schröder’s linguistic preparation for Hartz IV, which was introduced a few years later. What now returns under the heading “total objector” is the idea of ​​a cold-heartedly punitive state, which, however, was not invented by the CDU. SPD Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil has long since set out on this path with the traffic lights.

He wants to completely stop receiving benefits for two months if he refuses to work. The CDU is now taking this to a head. In 2019, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that only cuts of up to 30 percent are permitted. But the CDU and Ampel see constitutionally compliant ways to completely abolish the subsistence minimum. Forcing people to work or starving them is apparently the new, harsh tone in times of skilled labor shortages.

First of all, better wages

And unfortunately it meets with approval in parts of society. The CDU itself makes no secret of the fact that the so-called “total objectors” – incidentally a good candidate for the worst word of the year – represent a tiny minority. Even with all the harshness imaginable: it will not save the German economy. This is simply populism instead of a program. What falls out of focus is that what is considered “reasonable work” requires a social interpretation.

For example, the Sanktionsfrei association, which supports the unemployed, reported on a former gambling addict who refused to work in an arcade. There are often cases where daycare opening times do not match working hours. On the backs of the weakest, the CDU is hiding its own programmatic emptiness in the post-Merkel era, especially when it comes to the question of what conservative social policy should contain.

So it’s no coincidence that the CDU doesn’t like to talk about the so-called Aufstocker, people who often work for low wages and still have to receive citizen’s benefit. If it did, the CDU would have to denounce the conditions that it supported during its time in government. Compared to other European countries, Germany still has a large low-wage sector. That’s why the wage gap is so small.

Growing poverty in the rich country

Better wages are what Germany urgently needs. The demonization of citizens’ benefit recipients therefore serves a purpose, according to the motto: Divide and conquer. Because anyone who takes a more differentiated approach to basic security will notice: Maybe he or she is only one depression, a need for care or a dismissal far away from those who are currently being pilloried.

The fact that there is a domestic political debate about whether it is possible to take the last shirt off the poorest people is all the more absurd given the fact that the problem is currently being noticed beyond the country’s borders. This week the European Council published a report on growing social inequality in Germany. The extent of poverty and social exclusion here is “out of all proportion to wealth”.

The following are criticized: child poverty, poverty in old age, housing shortage, growing homelessness. The traffic lights do not provide sufficient answers to all of these problems, and the Union certainly does not. The latter prefers to position itself against basic child security, against a further increase in the minimum wage, or a tightening of tenancy law.

Perhaps the CDU could one day take action against tax evasion with the same vigor. Ultimately, there would be more to gain than from the long-term unemployed: the German tax union estimates the annual damage to be at least 100 billion euros. But why look up when you can step down?