Germany: unemployment benefits for foreigners almost doubled since 2007

According to the Federal Government, foreigners' claims to basic security have almost doubled since 2007. The number of German Hartz IV recipients, on the other hand, has declined sharply.

Foreigners received almost 13 billion euros in basic security in 2018 (Hartz IV). In the period from September 2018 to August 2019, it was 12.62 billion euros. This emerges from a response from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a request from AfD MP René Springer, which is available to the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (NOZ). The payment claims of foreign Hartz IV recipients have almost doubled since 2007. At that time they were just under 6.6 billion euros.

Because the number of German Hartz IV recipients fell sharply in the same period, the payment entitlements of beneficiaries fell in the comparable period (September 2018 to August 2019) by a total of 1.67 billion euros to 34.9 billion euros. The amount of Hartz IV payment claims by German households fell from just under 30 billion in 2007 to 22.1 billion euros, which is 7.9 billion euros less, according to the response from the Ministry of Labor.

In the group of foreign Hartz IV recipients, citizens from other EU countries had claims of around 2.4 billion euros from September 2018 to August 2019. A good 6.1 billion euros went to people from the eight most important countries of asylum. Refugees from Syria accounted for more than half of this (just under EUR 3.6 billion), followed by Iraqis (EUR 840 million) and Afghans (EUR 810 million).

These sums do not include government benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act that are paid to (as yet) unrecognized asylum seekers, tolerated or foreigners obliged to leave. Government spending on these in 2018, minus repayments, was 4.7 billion euros.

Refugees, "more precious than gold"

"What the refugees bring us is more valuable than gold," Schulz said in June 2017 during a speech he gave at the University of Heidelberg. "It is the conviction, yes, the unwavering belief in the dream of Europe." [link]

Refugees were "the best thing that's happened [to Germany] in 2015," Deutsche Bank chief economist David Folkerts-Landau said in December, 2015. [link]

In an interview with German daily Die Welt, Folkerts-Landau called the influx of migrants seeking a fresh start in Europe's biggest economy "a huge opportunity."

"I can even picture a cultural and economic renaissance similar to the one in the decades prior to the beginning of World War 1," he told the German newspaper.

As it usually happens, the self-imposed optimism couldn't be further from the truth. It should also be borne in mind that foreigners with a German passport are counted in this data as Germans.

Sources:

Tichys Einblick

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Osnabrücker Zeitung

Photo: DiePresse.com