According to the will of the traffic light coalition, the new basic income is to replace the basic social security system Hartz IV from January.

And it is intended to “strengthen cohesion in the country” through a “more humane” treatment of the unemployed.

That's what Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Green Party leader Ricarda Lang said.

In fact, however, it is now leading to an unprecedented confrontation: the SPD and Greens responded to the Union's criticism of the project with "fake news" allegations and compared CDU leader Friedrich Merz to Donald Trump.

The Union has "lost nothing more in the political center of this country," said SPD leader Lars Klingbeil.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Politically, the row has to do with the fact that the citizen income law needs the approval of the federal states governed by the Union in the Bundesrat, otherwise it cannot come into force.

The fact that the Union is serious about its objections was shown on Monday by a joint appearance by the specialist politicians of their parliamentary group with their state social affairs ministers Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) from North Rhine-Westphalia and Ulrike Scharf (CSU) from Bavaria.

They countered the impression that the criticism was only about "political games" by Merz.

In fact, the conflict is explosive, among other things, because the increase in the Hartz IV standard rates for the 5.4 million benefit recipients on January 1st depends on the law coming in on time.

A new calculation method is planned, which will lead to an increase of 11.8 percent. For adults living alone, the monthly rate is to increase by 53 to 502 euros.

With the old method, there would only be about 20 euros more.

The traffic light has not yet responded to the Union's proposal to separate this point, which it also supports, from the rest of the law and bring it forward.

Sticking point wage gap requirement

One point of contention, to which the "Fake News" allegations by the SPD and Greens also refer, concerns the so-called wage gap requirement: It is about whether working in the future will still be worthwhile for employees in the lower income brackets if the benefits for those receiving citizen benefits increase significantly and At the same time, they have to fear fewer sanctions if they behave uncooperatively towards the job center and refuse to take up work or support measures.

According to the traffic light draft law, there should be no more sanctions during a new “trust period” for the first six months of receiving citizen benefits.

According to an overview by the Federal Ministry of Labor, a couple with three children currently receives 2,688 euros a month in current social benefits in the Hartz IV system;

Special services or surcharges for additional requirements are added depending on the case.

The 2688 euros include the living and heating costs, which are therefore an average of 908 euros for this type of household in the Hartz IV system.

Housing costs can be higher

With the citizens' benefit, the cash benefit would now increase from 1780 euros to 210 to 1990 euros.

With unchanged housing costs, the result is 2898 euros.

Depending on the region, the housing costs paid by the job center can also be significantly higher.

In Munich, for example, the average housing costs for corresponding Hartz IV households are around 400 euros higher, according to the Federal Employment Agency.

This results in a monthly performance of a good 3300 euros.

In order to achieve this amount through work (plus child benefit), gross earnings of around 3200 euros would be required;

around 20 euros an hour for a sole earner.

This is a wage level that not all employees achieve.

However, the SPD and the Greens base their “fake news” allegations on the fact that such employee households are generally also entitled to additional social benefits such as child allowance and housing benefit;

and thus ultimately more income than the citizen income budget.

The Union counters that it is not the receipt of social benefits but wages that are the focus of consideration.

And in addition, access to citizen's allowance should be made so much easier that unemployed households would be able to access this benefit more easily than employees would receive housing allowance.

There is also a point that labor market researcher Holger Schäfer from the German Economic Institute (IW) points out: Even if employees earn a few euros more, there is still one important difference – the working hours.

If recipients of citizenship benefit spend neither time on registered work nor on subsidies and yet earn almost as much income, this could also be an imbalance.