Despite lower immigration: costs for immigrants in Berlin are rising significantly

BERLIN. The costs for accommodation and livelihood for asylum seekers in Berlin are well above the budget. Social Senator Elke Breitenbach (Left Party) has therefore now called for a further 21.4 million euros to be approved by the House of Representatives in a supplementary budget for 2020 and 2021, reports the Berliner Morgenpost. This increased the expenditure to 93 million euros per year.

A spokeswoman admitted to the newspaper that the number of newly immigrated asylum seekers had decreased. The influx is "so far lower than assumed in 2018" and is below the previous year's level. However, the corona crisis meant that fewer benefit recipients switched from the responsibility of the state refugee office to the usual social authorities, where they then received basic security.

Incomprehension among experts
Experts who remained anonymous told the Morgenpost that it was incomprehensible how an absolute influx of 3,250 asylum seekers could lead to an increase in the number of people financed more than twice as high. Since the refugee office had provided relatively precise figures, it was reasonable to assume that the figures were calculated downwards during the budget deliberations in order to reduce the budgeted expenditure. Now the additional costs would be waved through without much debate in the supplementary budget.

Asylum seekers cause billions in social costs across Germany every year. Job seekers and low-income refugees and their family members cost the state more than six billion euros annually. “The average monthly payment entitlement of these benefit communities amounted to 1,389 euros and contains the claims for all members of these benefit communities”, an AfD inquiry had shown in September.

Source: Junge Freiheit