Citizens' income and pensions: How social policy hides the refugees

Whether it's about citizen income or the future of statutory pensions: one of the biggest changes for the German welfare state has so far played no visible role in the reform plans of the traffic light coalition.

And it hardly ever comes up in the political debates about it.

This change is the admission and immigration of several million people from all over the world - combined with the question of what actually follows from this beyond ad hoc measures for social policy.

To put it more precisely: is the welfare state properly prepared for the fact that the group of benefit recipients and beneficiaries is now made up quite differently than it was just a few years ago?

The answer is: no.

This does not primarily concern questions of financing (which are difficult to discuss in connection with the right to asylum anyway).

Above all, social policy needs to be conceptually clarified with regard to who the “welfare state promise” should actually apply to and in what way in the future.

Since June, 600,000 Ukrainians have come “into the system”

The basic security for jobseekers (previously Hartz IV, soon to be citizens' allowance) is about how much the real shift in tasks in the job centers to integration work with newcomers from all over the world should be reflected in processes, resources and instruments.

The political debate is undeterred about how benefit payments for domestic long-term unemployed can be made “more dignified”, how middle-class households can have easier access to basic security, how higher cash benefits and fewer sanctions can go together – but are these the approaches to integrating newcomers well?

Shouldn't that be a very central question in the citizen income reform?

The official statistics show how the structure of benefit recipients has changed: At the beginning of 2015, 4.6 million Germans and 1.3 million people of foreign origin, both adults and children, were living on Hartz IV. In the meantime, there are only just under 3 million German recipients , but they face 2.4 million foreigners.

Their share has increased from 23 to 45 percent.

The decision by the federal and state governments to grant refugees from the Ukraine direct access to Hartz IV care also contributed to this.

Since June, 600,000 Ukrainians have come “into the system”.

However, the proportion of foreign purchasers had already reached 38 percent - not least because the number of German purchasers was falling steadily.

The unions are just waiting

There is hardly any talk of this in the debate about citizen income.

This is partly due to a reluctance to even discuss the use of the welfare state by migrants.

The course taken by the SPD, Greens and social organizations does not fit the data either: You would have to admit how many residents, with and without a migration background, have found out from Hartz IV in recent years.

Instead, it is lamented that the total number of recipients - as well as the child poverty measured by it - has hardly fallen even during the upswing.

It was because since 2015 more than a million refugees have entered Hartz IV.

And the welfare state lobbyists have exploited this to change course in the interests of their core clientele.

However, this does not bring any targeted social policy - but integration and financing problems.

One can only hope that things will be different when it comes to old-age security: The question arises as to how social policy should deal with the fact that quite a few of today's newcomers will later be considered old-age poor according to the usual criteria - even if integration into the labor market is successful .

After all, anyone who has only spent part of their working life as a contributor in Germany will find it difficult to get a statutory pension that is sufficient for life without supplementary social assistance.

The relevant political forces will hardly hesitate to take advantage of this increase in statistical poverty in old age.

They will again demand higher percentage pension increases for all pensioners - just as the traffic light is already planning with the determination of a "minimum pension level" of 48 percent.

The unions are just waiting to demand a further increase in this guarantee line.

That then cost billions more and benefited above all recipients of higher pensions, for example former skilled workers and senior employees - although it is said to be aimed at reducing poverty in old age.

Society should clarify all the more quickly whether it should be seen as a socio-political problem at all if people who have found protection here later need an increase in their pension from social assistance funds.