Union accuses traffic light government of "tricking at the expense of the state budget".

The Union faction in the Bundestag accuses the federal government of operating with its plan for basic child security with outdated figures. "The traffic light wants us to believe that currently only 35 percent of eligible children receive the child allowance. But these are figures from 2018, i.e. before the comprehensive reform of the child supplement and the education and participation package," says family policy spokeswoman Silvia Breher (CDU) WELT.

In the so-called Strong Families Act, the then black-red federal government simplified the child supplement intended for low-income families in 2019 and made it accessible to more families. As of this year, the maximum rate is 250 euros per month and child. After the reform, the number of recipients jumped from 250,000 in 2019 to 800,000 in 2022.

Nevertheless, the service is only used by an estimated 35 percent of those entitled, the federal government recently announced in an answer to a small inquiry from the left-wing faction. The low use of the service is used by the traffic light as an argument to introduce basic child security with simplified digital application submission in order to help poor families in a tailor-made way. That would involve significantly higher expenses.

The Family Benefits Office currently pays almost 49 billion euros in child benefit and child allowance each year (figures from 2021). Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) has announced an additional requirement of twelve billion euros for basic child security.

When asked by the Union in writing where the estimate came from, the Ministry of Family Affairs now gave a surprising explanation. "The roughly estimated utilization rate of 35 percent is based on estimates by the Fraunhofer Institute (FIT) within the framework of the Strong Families Act," the ministry said. "The reform of the child allowance has simplified the benefit, and additional families who were previously not eligible were entitled to child allowance for the first time."

However, the federal government does not have any reliable and reliable figures on the use of the child supplement. “The use of state services always depends on the level of knowledge and the behavior of the citizens. If citizens do not report to the relevant government agencies, they cannot be recorded in the statistics either.”

The deputy federal chairman of the CDU, Breher, reacted with consternation to this answer. "I am appalled that the Federal Minister for Family Affairs is working with outdated estimates when calling for basic child security. We are not in fairy tale time here, but expect solid, serious and fact-based work," she says to WELT. "In any case, we assume that currently 80 percent of those entitled to claim may already receive the child supplement. But trickery at the expense of the state budget does not work at all.”

Breher calls on Minister Paus to revisit the evaluation of the "Strong Families Act" that she removed from the law, "so that a fact-based and needs-oriented further development of family policy services" can take place. “Purely ideological considerations are out of place. We owe that to the children and families.”

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