New Trend in Germany: Food Handouts for the Poor (Decline of Welfare State Spurs Private Charity)

WUPPERTAL, Germany -- Men with shoulders hunched against the rain line up at the back of a van, where volunteers dole out bowls of stew and chunks of bread.

The scene could date from the Great Depression, but it takes place every evening in this bustling industrial city in Western Germany.

Like others sipping their soup, Hans Martin says he comes here for a simple reason: "Hartz IV." That is the 2005 welfare law that slashed benefits for Germans who have been out of work for over a year. Mr. Martin, a 54-year-old former warehouse worker with heart trouble and numerous missing teeth, says he can't find work. His monthly benefit checks cover him for only about 20 days, he says.

For decades, Germany's welfare state kept the vast majority of people out of poverty. Even the unemployed could often live comfortably: The state paid them benefits worth over half of their last salary, indefinitely. That meant unemployed Germans were often better off than the lowest-paid workers in the U.S.

Today, as in many other European countries, Germany's welfare state is in retreat. Europe's stuttering economic performance over the past decade has led governments to trim benefits, hoping to rein in public spending and push people who have become dependent on welfare back to work.

>> The poor are always with us.

Yes, and we are commanded to take care of them. Private charity is the way it should be done.

I think there is an important reason why charity should be private: if you receive help from your brothers, you recognize it for what it is: “love”. (One of the many synonyms for love is charity.)

If you get it from the nameless faceless government, then it changes shape. It is no longer loving help volunteered by your brother. It becomes something you are “entitled” to.

I live in Germany and have watched this “Hartz IV” episode unfold. A guy who is unemployed for more than a year...goes on the program. You basically get your rent or mortgage/heat/utilities covered completely and get around $450 a month to cover food/bills, plus your healthcare is covered completely (free). There are various rules tied to this episode now. For example...you can’t enter Hartz IV unless you have used up every penny of savings (they check your bank account and investigate this detail). If you own a house, and its over 1200 sq ft...then you have a choice of selling it or renting out a room to someone to enter into the program.

There are basically three groups within Hartz IV now. You have the educated class...with degrees that are worthless...who usually have a mental or health-related problem. This group will usually force themselves to find a job and accept alot less pay in the end. The second group are small-time business men who guessed wrong and are bankrupt...with no savings left and they usually sold their house to help pay for the last of the dying business. These guys will usually dig themselves out in the end. But the third group...are the most interesting ones. They simply live without working. They will refuse jobs. They will refuse to retrain themselves. They actually accept the idea of $450 a month even if they have two kids and a wife to support. They sponge clothing and luxury items off their family or their wife’s family. The kids spend the summer with the grandparents to get out of the pity for a while.

I have an old neighbor...a pothead...who has been on the program since the beginning. The guy was a fired truck driver. The government has attempted to get him hooked up with 20 different jobs over the past four years...and each ended within a month or less. Some lasted five work-days at best. He owes over $15k to the local bank which he can never pay. He has DSL running into the house and sits around gaming most of the day. His wife draws $700 a month for disability but that money goes into various costs for him to have the barest of luxury items. He is a true loser and cannot do anything else. Across Germany....I’m betting that there are at least 200,000 people like him...with no future period...at age 40.

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