Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) has raised the prospect of additional reductions to Germany's Bürgergeld Citizen's benefit, angering both coalition partner SPD and the opposition. "I believe the standard rate is currently too high," Dobrindt told Focus magazine on Wednesday. "That should be put to the test again." The SPD rejected the suggestion; the Greens and the Left reacted with outrage.
"The massive increases in the standard rate during the previous parliamentary term led to significant cost increases," Dobrindt argued. The Bürgergeld standard rate should "cover the subsistence minimum and nothing beyond that." Overall, he said, the programme, costing nearly €50 billion per year, "could make a decisive contribution to consolidation." He was convinced that more savings were possible there than currently planned.
The government had set out to achieve annual savings running into the billions through its Bürgergeld reform, ideally in the double-digit billions. According to the Labour Ministry, however, the reform as legislated will not produce any notable savings on its own. The government's hope is that by bringing more people into work through the reform, savings in the hundreds of millions could be achieved.
The bulk of the reform takes effect on 1 July, replacing the existing Bürgergeld with a new basic income framework called Grunsicherungsgeld. The overhaul introduces tighter cooperation obligations for recipients and harsher sanctions for those who are not cooperative in their job search and repeatedly miss appointments. Exemptions apply, among others, to children, young people, and those with mental illness.
Benefit rates have been stable since January 2024, having risen by around twelve percent within a single year prior to that. Single adults and single parents receive €563 per month; those in partnerships receive €506; and minors receive between €357 and €451, plus a €20 immediate supplement. Rent including ancillary costs and, within reasonable limits, heating costs are covered on top.
Dobrindt's push received backing from within the Union. "Alexander Dobrindt is right," said Junge Union chair Johannes Winkel in the Rheinische Post. The level of the Bürgergeld "in combination with the assumption of rent and energy costs and numerous free services means that the incentive to take up work is far too low." An "honest debate" was therefore needed, he said.
CSU parliamentary group leader Alexander Hoffmann warned against drawing any red lines: "We are in the middle of the biggest reform phase in 20 years, and it is entirely clear that everything must be on the table," he told the paper. "We need to increase the effectiveness of our systems, incentivise employment and ease the burden on the welfare state, no area should be excluded from the outset."
Coalition partner SPD reacted with incomprehension. "It is easy to say that taking a few euros away from people will get the economy humming again or deliver significant savings," said Bernd Rützel (SPD), chair of the Bundestag's labour committee, in the Rheinische Post. "The reality, however, is a different one."
Dobrindt should "surely know that savings in the billions cannot be achieved" through rate reductions, Rützel said. "The greater savings come from getting people into work." Reductions would also affect housing benefit recipients and top-up claimants. And there were rules governing benefit adjustments, "a fixed mechanism, a basket of goods. A zero round is also possible."
The opposition reacted considerably more sharply. "It is not the standard rates that are too high, it is the arrogance with which people at the subsistence minimum are being discussed here," said Left Party social policy spokesperson Cansin Köktürk in the Rheinische Post. Budget gaps could also be closed "without attacking human dignity", through an appropriate contribution from the super-wealthy to public finances.
Greens deputy parliamentary group leader Andreas Audretsch accused the Union of "warming up election campaign fairy tales." Savings in the double-digit billions had been promised, and in the end "the coalition's reform saved nothing at all," he said. "This is precisely the kind of completely fact-free policymaking that stirs up discontent and anger, and it has plunged the Union into a deep crisis of trust." The Union had "completely taken leave of reality" on financial and budgetary policy.
The VdK welfare association accused the Interior Minister of misleading the public. "There is no question of massive increases in the standard rate, as Minister Dobrindt puts it," said association president Verena Bentele in the paper. "Bürgergeld recipients have six euros a day for food. I would very much like an explanation from the minister as to where savings are still possible there."
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