"It has to be right": Linnemann puts pressure on Bas over citizen's income reform

CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann sees the planned citizen's income reform as the biggest change to the welfare state since Agenda 2010. He calls for a complete rethink and warns against hasty decisions.

CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann has warned Federal Labor Minister Bärbel Bas against a "rush" approach to the citizen's allowance reform. "It has to be right," Linnemann told "Stern." "If you consider how complicated the system is, the transfer withdrawal rates, the interface problems with other systems like housing benefit – then a welfare state reform will take a year. We won't be able to get this reform underway until spring. There can't be any hasty decisions."

"This reform is the most important welfare reform since Agenda 2010," Linnemann continued. "We have to deliver. There are over 200,000 recipients of the citizen's allowance alone who have absolutely no barriers to employment and could work immediately." SPD Labor Minister Bärbel Bas announced a more consistent approach to the abuse of social benefits in the Bundestag this month.

At the moment, recipients of the citizen's allowance are often shuffled from one program to another without any significant success, Linnemann said. "A complete rethink is needed. If someone is able to work and repeatedly rejects a job offer, the state must assume that they are clearly not in need. In that case, the citizen's allowance must be abolished entirely."

Since March 2024, job centers have been able to completely suspend citizen's allowance for a maximum of two months if someone "persistently refuses" to take on reasonable work, as they say. The regulation dates back to the then SPD Labor Minister Hubertus Heil.

At the time, there was sharp criticism from social welfare organizations and even from the ranks of the Social Democrats' youth organization. "The proposal to eliminate all benefits beyond rent is neither compatible with human dignity nor with the basic idea of ​​the citizen's income," said Juso leader Philip Türmer to the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper.