Employer President Dulger calls for a general overhaul of citizens' money

Employer President Dulger calls for a general overhaul of citizens' money

Rainer Dulger, President of the employers' association BDA, has once again expressed his concerns about citizens' money and called for a drastic overhaul of the system. According to an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dulger sees Germany on the way towards an unconditional basic income. He emphasizes the need for a “fundamental overhaul of the system”, as many people in the country are of the opinion that citizen's benefit is leading to an increase in refusal to work.

Dulger is calling for stricter regulation, particularly for so-called “total refusers”. He advocates that in the event of a lack of cooperation and failure to report, citizens' benefits should be significantly reduced from the start. Employers are pushing for not only standard salaries to be canceled, but also housing and heating costs. However, there are doubts as to whether such a step would hold up before the Federal Constitutional Court, as it has already determined that complete benefit cuts violate the subsistence level and are therefore incompatible with human dignity.

Given that many employers perceive the current social system to be excessive and unfair, the BDA calls for a decoupling of income and social benefits in order to increase incentives to work. There is also a call for a redefinition of need so that people with certain assets do not receive living benefits. However, a study by the Ifo Institute refuted the claim that work incentives were distorted by citizens' money. Research showed that work in Germany always leads to higher income than unemployment, as long as low earners have the opportunity to top up their income through social benefits.