SPD Secretary-General rejects cuts to child maintenance support

Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) Secretary-General Tim Klüssendorf has strongly opposed proposed cuts to child maintenance support, a plan put forward by Federal Family Minister Karin Prien (CDU).

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I expect Karin Prien to consistently focus on how we can make life easier, not harder, for single parents and their children, despite the scarcity of funds.

Klüssendorf urged Prien to focus on ways to ease the lives of single parents and their children, rather than making them more difficult. He criticized the proposal as a "confession of failure" in a statement to the Funke Mediengruppe.

The maintenance support, known as 'Unterhaltsvorschuss,' is intended for children whose non-custodial parent fails to provide financial support, is unknown, or has passed away. Prien's ministry justified the proposed reduction in the support's age limit from 18 to 16 by citing federal budget savings.

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Cutting support for families is the wrong way.

However, the plan has faced significant resistance within the governing coalition, particularly from the SPD parliamentary group. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Minister-President Manuela Schwesig, also an SPD member and former federal family minister, echoed concerns, stating that cutting support for families is the wrong approach. The German Child Protection Association and the Diakonie president, Rüdiger Schuch, have also joined the chorus of criticism, advocating for stronger enforcement of payments from defaulting parents rather than reducing benefits for families already under strain.

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We need measures to enforce payments from those who are behind on maintenance, not benefit restrictions for single parents and their children. They affect people who are already heavily burdened.