Bremen (epd). The state of Bremen participates in a hardship fund for people from the former GDR as well as for Jewish quota refugees and late resettlers with very low pensions. The Bremen Senate decided on Tuesday. The federal government has set up a foundation for this purpose, from which the people concerned can apply for a one-off payment of 2,500 euros. If you are resident in a federal state that participates in the fund, the payments can be increased to 5,000 euros.
The Senate expects that around 600 Jewish immigrants and 660 late resettlers will be eligible to apply in Bremen and Bremerhaven, as the Greens parliamentary group explained. The state is contributing financially with a total of almost 3.2 million euros. So far, in addition to Bremen, the federal states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg and Thuringia have joined the foundation, the left-wing faction said. Joining is still possible until Friday.
How the beneficiaries are distributed nationwide cannot be precisely quantified. According to the Federal Ministry of Labor, the three groups are roughly the same size: around 65,000 to 70,000 Jewish quota refugees, 60,000 late resettlers and 65,000 to 70,000 disadvantaged pensioners from East Germany who have suffered injustices in the West German pension system. The financial help is to be given to those who receive a pension of less than 830 euros per month.