Citizens' fees: Saxons are fighting poverty!

Citizens' fees: Saxons are fighting poverty!

Leipzig, Deutschland - In Saxony, the performance cuts for civil allowance recipients have increased again. According to the LVZ last year almost every 20th citizen allowance of over 239,000 received at least one sanction. This corresponds to a concern of 4.8 percent. The inventory rate for performance cuts rose from 0.8 to 1 percent. Particularly high sanction rates were reported by the job centers in Zwickau, Leipzig and Mittelachsen, where they were between 5.7 and 6.7 percent. In contrast, the Görlitz Job Center had the lowest sanction rate with only 2 percent.

The effects of these sanctions are significant. In the case of repeated breaches of duty, citizenship money can be reduced by up to 30 percent for a period of three months. If a reasonable work refuses, there may even be a complete deletion of the standard rate for up to two months. However, the reduction in costs for accommodation and heating remains unaffected. Those affected can have the sanctions canceled if they fulfill their duties.

sanctions and contradictions

The numbers also show that the problems are not only in the sanctions. In 2024, over 31,333 contradictions against civil allowance notices were lodged in Saxony, which represents a decline compared to 2023. Nevertheless, this is an increase compared to 2022. The complaints against the notices of the job center fell from 3,737 in 2022 to 3,454 in 2024, as Blick . A third of the contradictions were successful, which indicates the needs of the citizens' allowance and at the same time illustrates the challenges they experience in their everyday life.

The criticism of the citizens' money grows. The BSW member of the state parliament Ronny Kupke expressed that the introduction of the citizens' allowance had not brought any noticeable improvements and that unemployment continued to increase in Saxony while the job centers were busy with the contradictions. Kupke called for a reform of unemployment benefit in order to better meet the current situation.

planned reforms of civil allowance

The citizens' allowance was originally introduced by the previous federal government in 2023 to reform basic security and combat long -term unemployment. Andrea Nahles, the boss of the Federal Working Agency, recently emphasized that citizen gowns should not be confronted with questions about her living situation in the first two years in order to increase the chances of getting into the labor market.

The current coalition is now planning measures that may lead to a harder handling towards unemployed. Binding agreements for citizens' places and the loss of all services offered for rejection are planned. Despite the necessary statutory steps, the introduction of the new regulations could be long in coming, such as MDR reported.