About the benefit sanction moratorium in the basic income support system. Statement of the IAB on the public hearing in the Committee for Labour and Social Affairs of the German Bundestag on 16-5-2022

Abstract

"The public hearing of the German Bundestag’s Committee on Labour and Social Affairs 2022 was concerned with the Federal Government’s “Proposal of the 11th Law on Changing the Social Code II” (the IAB comment 3/2022 is concerned with an earlier version of this draft law) that would introduce a moratorium on benefit sanctions (except for sanctions due to missing an appointment) until the end of the year 2022 and a change request of the parliamentary group the Left Party. It was also concerned with a change request of the parliamentary groups of the Social Democratic Party, the Alliance '90/The Greens, and the Free Democratic Party, which was only presented at the day of the public hearing and which is not discussed in this comment that had to be handed in earlier. The change request of the parliamentary group the Left Party proposes to permanently abolish all benefit sanctions for unemployment benefit II recipients. It emphasises that, according to the judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court from the 5th November 2019, benefit sanctions are – within certain limits – consistent with the constitutional law, although they can be abolished. This statement is first concerned with the draft law of the Federal Government. It then turns to the contents of the change request of the parliamentary group the Left Party and discusses the following aspects raised in the request: deprivation due to benefit sanctions and related issues, counterproductive effects of benefit sanctions on goals of labour market policies, and indirect discriminatory effects of benefit sanctions implying that specific groups of people are more often sanctioned then others. With the available scientific evidence on benefit sanctions, neither a benefit sanction moratorium nor the abolition of benefit sanctions can be justified. However, against the background of this evidence, elements of a comprehensive reform of the benefit sanction system can be well justified." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Knize, V., Wolf, M. & Wolff, J. (2022): Zum Sanktionsmoratorium der Grundsicherung für Arbeitsuchende. Stellungnahme des IAB zur öffentlichen Anhörung im Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales des Deutschen Bundestags am 16.5.2022. (IAB-Stellungnahme 04/2022), Nürnberg, 14 p. DOI:10.48720/IAB.SN.2204