Christian Lindner is said to have lied about the employment participation of single parents. Nevertheless, basic child security is a done deal. The left foams.
Berlin – For months they struggled traffic light coalition around the cornerstones of basic child security, the introduction of which had already been agreed in the coalition agreement. Most recently, the project was considered a prime example of the repeatedly burgeoning differences of opinion among the coalition partners. The main point of contention was the financing, especially the FDP hit the brakes: too much money, too expensive, too little incentive to work.
In the meantime, an agreement in principle has been reached. From 2025, all children should receive a basic amount, the so-called “children’s guarantee amount”. This should at least correspond to the current amount of child benefit, i.e. 250 euros per month. There is also a flexible “additional child contribution”. A lump sum for education and participation as well as a lump sum for children’s housing costs, which decreases with increasing income, “until an income level that has yet to be defined is exceeded, there is no longer any entitlement,” according to Family Minister Lisa Paus (Green).
Does basic child security help “quicker, easier and more directly” – or is it a bad compromise?
The family minister was optimistic that needy families could be helped “quicker, easier and more directly” in the future. Helping more children out of poverty with less bureaucracy sounds good at first. However, it is questionable to what extent the approved funds are sufficient to achieve this ambitious goal. At the beginning of the negotiations, Paus had estimated the costs at twelve billion euros. Finance Minister Lindner (FDP) had set a so-called memo item of only two billion euros in the budget. The agreement on 2.4 billion euros, which was reached after pressure from Chancellor Scholz, clearly bears the handwriting of the Liberals.
Christian Lindner had not tired of emphasizing during the negotiations that financially weak families “simply transfer more social transfers” does not necessarily improve the life chances of the children. More money is “always desirable, but not always possible”. Instead, Lindner always referred to other approaches to combating child poverty. “Language support and integration of the parents into the labor market” are crucial, after all, the poverty of the children is often due to the parents’ unemployment. A pure redistribution of money “will reach its limits at some point in the fight against poverty”.
Christian Lindner sticks to it: basic child security yes, but no false incentives
When the law was presented on August 28, Lindner blew the same horn again. A reform of social support services for families should not be an incentive not to work. This also applies to single parents. Although one wants to improve their material situation, “but on the other hand not give additional incentives not to seek work.” After all, it is “a lamentable fact that the labor force participation of single parents has declined in the past decade despite the expansion of the childcare infrastructure,” says Lindner. One should therefore not send the wrong signal that reinforces this trend.
However, this assertion is completely unfounded, as can be seen from the Federal Ministry of Labor’s response to a recent inquiry from Heidi Reichinnek. Reichinnek is the spokeswoman for women’s, children’s and youth policy left faction in the Bundestag. Accordingly, in 2013, 1.147 million, 71.1 percent of single parents were employed. Last year it was 74.9 percent with 1.157 million. This means that the employment of single parents has increased in the last ten years. numbers dem Editorial network Germany (RND) are available confirm this. The employment rate has risen steadily since 2013 and has never been below the 2013 level.
Did Christian Linder knowingly lie? Basic child security is coming soon anyway
“Finance Minister Linder deliberately lied,” Reichinnek told the editorial network. She is convinced that Lindner knew the right numbers. Nevertheless, he “very clearly wanted to create a mood against basic child security on the back of single parents”. According to Reichinnek, Family Minister Paus did not contradict “this nonsense” at the press conference. That was “really pathetic and misogynistic”. Single parents, 90 percent of whom are women, are stigmatized by the finance minister, even though they fight for maintenance and do most of the care work.
However, this criticism will probably not change anything in the compromise that has been made. Most recently, however, it was still unclear when the cabinet would pass the draft law. Family Minister Paus had initially mentioned September 13, then there was talk that the Ministry of Finance would need another four weeks to examine the law. Lindner contradicted the assessment that there were still open questions between the ministries. “The technical implementation issues are solved by the officials, there was no political dissent,” said the Minister of Finance. He assumes that the basic child security could possibly be decided by the federal cabinet as early as next week. (tpn)
#Lindner #lie #basic #child #security