The precursor to a limited, unconditional basic income

On Thursday, the Bundestag will vote on the citizens' allowance planned by the traffic light coalition, the successor to Hartz IV. A heated debate is expected, but the script is already set: the Union will reject the citizen's allowance in its planned form, and the coalition will decide with their majority.

It will be exciting and decisive next Monday in the Federal Council: the CDU and CSU could stop the plans there. Hopefully the Union parties are doing just that. They are currently defending tooth and nail a welfare state reform that was introduced under Red-Green and then SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The Hartz laws made a not inconsiderable contribution to the fact that the “sick man” Germany was able to recover in the early 2000s.

Since then, the framework conditions have changed drastically. Therefore, the Hartz IV regulations must be adapted to it. But not in the way the traffic light parties imagine.

It is largely undisputed that, for example, beneficiaries must receive more money. One cannot live humanely from the current standard rates. The Union recognized this - very late - and is now using a tactical maneuver to switch to the traffic light course and higher standard rates.

But the SPD in particular is not just concerned with overdue corrections to the Hartz system in the medium term, but with a fundamental restructuring of the welfare state. While there should be significant relief for recipients of unemployment benefit II and social security benefits, all those with higher salaries should be massively burdened: through higher taxes on income, wealth, inheritance and profits, by means of a one-off wealth levy, a so-called transformation soli.

This is the beginning of a fundamental redistribution in the country and, in the case of citizen income, the preliminary stage to a limited, unconditional basic income. Because the sanctions should be softened even in the case of stubborn refusers and even fall below the level recommended by the Federal Constitutional Court.

The traffic light draft envisages that future recipients of the citizen's income will be granted a six-month "trust period" at the beginning, during which those affected are only threatened with limited benefit cuts if they do not appear to look for work.

But is it fair for someone to receive benefits from the state without giving the equivalent in return that the law obliges them to provide? is this social After all, low-income earners also help finance such benefits. Even the Federal Constitutional Court had pushed for tougher sanctions.

But the SPD definitely wants to leave the Hartz IV system behind. Internally, it is seen as an original sin and the main reason for its own descent and the loss of confidence of the citizens in the years leading up to the federal elections.

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