SecondA month before the election, a new topic came into focus, highlighting the difference between the main political parties: child poverty.Green Party Chairman Annalena Balbok The position taken is that the solidarity surcharge for income tax cannot be abolished because the state needs this money to increase the social welfare of children in Hartz IV families. She played against Armin Laschet, the chairman of the CDU. “Mr. Raschelt, you want to cancel the solo performances of high-income earners. I want to use these 10 billion euros to finally lift the children of our rich countries out of poverty,” she said in a debate on top candidates on RTL TV.
Raschelt However, it is opposed to the view that higher social welfare is the key to opening up a way out of trouble for unemployed parents and their children. “You help the children, especially their parents, help them get out of Hartz IV,” he said. “Let the economy develop, create more jobs and more opportunities-then the best thing we can do is fight poverty.” In contrast, the SPD candidate Olaf Schultz agreed with Belbok’s Views, and added that raising pension levels is also a necessary condition for poverty eradication.
Technically not an undisputed publication
“One-fifth of children live in poverty,” Balbok said, which justifies the Green Party’s request for new and independent “basic child benefits” for children from poor families instead of the current basic guarantees. Harz IV To introduce. Germany is one of the richest countries in the world, but some children don’t even have school bags when they go to school.
This position is surprising because, in addition to the usual standard benefits of about ten years, school kits are also provided for school children from Hartz IV families. This means a one-time payment of 154.50 euros per academic year; in addition to other needs where the job center can provide funds on request. This did not go deep in the debate. The Green Party hopes to use their basic child protection model to transfer 547 euros per month for each child in an unemployed family-including a monthly “guarantee” of 290 euros, which will also pay for the children of wealthy parents, and up to 257 euros. Low-income subsidies. For children who receive the “guaranteed amount”, they will also receive an additional subsidy of 150 euros per year for school supplies.
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In the Hartz IV system, the current monthly standard rate is staggered according to age, ranging from 283 Euros for preschool children to 373 Euros for young people. The child welfare rights of the Hartz IV family are offset. For preschool children, the monthly cash benefit has almost doubled to 547 Euros. However, child welfare should no longer exist in the green model. Together with the existing low-income child allowance, this will no longer apply-otherwise, the tax-exempt child allowance will be eliminated. For families that have been tax-exempt so far, the tax burden for each child has been reduced by more than 290 euros. Except for the continuation of “Soli”, the tax burden will be even higher at this time.
Belbok’s statement that “every five children live in poverty” can be found in the Bertelsmann Foundation’s technically controversial publication from 2020, which uses an expanded definition of poverty and is defined by This results in the number of 2.8 million poor children: on the one hand, if a child lives in a family that is “at risk of poverty” according to the statistical definition, it will be classified as a poor child. This happens when the family income is less than 60% of the median social income.
On the other hand, the publication classifies all children from Hartz IV families as poor-even if their income is above the poverty risk threshold due to the Hartz IV transfer. According to Bertelsmann, this applies to approximately 460,000 children. If this definition continues to be applied, due to the introduction of the proposed basic child benefits, statistically measured child poverty may increase-because the beneficiary group will grow as benefits increase.
