Left Party: Benefit cuts could affect eight million people in Germany

The Left Party in Germany estimates that proposed cuts to social benefits could impact around eight million people. The party's social policy expert, Ulrich Schneider, outlined potential consequences in a paper, highlighting planned reductions in nursing care, housing benefits, parental allowance, child emergency supplements, and delays in Bafög (student aid) adjustments.

Schneider stated that the "cutting policy hits the lowest earners in this society with high precision." He warned that if these measures are implemented, poverty rates in Germany will significantly increase. He emphasized that the cuts are not focused on major reforms to health and pension insurance but rather on smaller, seemingly less significant programs.

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Should all of this become reality, the poverty rates in Germany will increase significantly again, that is certain.

Specific examples cited include housing benefits, where savings of at least 1.5 billion euros annually are planned by reducing recipient numbers and benefit amounts, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands. In nursing care, a proposed tightening of access could impact about a million slightly dependent individuals if a monthly allowance is removed. For parental allowance, while minimum and maximum amounts might slightly increase, the duration of benefits would decrease from 14 to 12 months, which the Left Party argues deters young people from having children.

The party also points to the planned abolition of a 25-euro child emergency supplement for poor families, which would affect 1.5 million children in 600,000 households. Additionally, changes to the maintenance advance system would limit state support to children under 16, impacting around 111,000 teenagers and 69,000 single parents. The adjustment of Bafög's housing cost allowance is also delayed.

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The cutting policy hits the lowest earners in this society with high precision.