Reform proposals concerning the basic income support and other laws on social security. Statement of the IAB on the public hearing in the Committee for Labour and Social Affairs of the German Bundestag on 7 June 2021

Abstract

"A public hearing of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Labour and Social Affairs was held on June 7, 2021 that was concerned with the proposals “Guaranteed basic income support instead of Hartz IV - extended social security during and after the Corona crisis” of the parliamentary group Alliance '90/The Greens and “Overcoming Hartz IV – introducing a Basic income support with no benefit sanctions” of the parliamentary group the Left Party. Researchers of IAB commented on the following topics of the proposals: - Raising the level of the regular benefit and abolishing the related benefit sanctions (standard of living of unemployment benefit II recipients; labour supply, and fiscal cost) - Amendment of the supplementary income regulations in SGB II and SGB XII and reduction of the transfer withdrawal rate in SGB II - Employment promotion and quality of counselling services (individual action plan, client-staff ratio of the job centres, work first rule, entitlement to further training, financial support for participating in further training) - unemployment insurance benefit (eligibility rules, entitlement lengths, extended unemployment insurance for people with a contribution record of at least 30 years, replacement rate, unemployment insurance benefit sanctions) - Conversion of “Minijobs” into employment subject to social security contributions (motives for marginal employment, situation of marginal employees and transitions into regular employment, expected labour supply effects of a conversion of “Mini-“ and “Midi-jobs” into jobs subject to social security contributions) - Raising the minimum wage to 12 Euros or to a “poverty-proof” level." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Bernhard, S., Bossler, M., Kruppe, T., Lietzmann, T., Senghaas, M., Stephan, G., Trenkle, S., Wiemers, J. & Wolff, J. (2021): Vorschläge zur Reform der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende und weiterer Gesetze zur sozialen Absicherung. Stellungnahme des IAB zur öffentlichen Anhörung im Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales des Deutschen Bundestags am 7.6.2021. (IAB-Stellungnahme 05/2021), Nürnberg, 41 p.