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Berlin (German news agency) – Around 1.8 million minors live in Germany in families who receive state benefits. These numbers come from a response from the federal government to a request from the AfD parliamentary group, about which the “Welt” (Wednesday edition) reports.
The number of all minors in basic security has decreased – the highest level was recorded in 2018 with more than two million. However, the number of children and young people without German citizenship who are denied citizenship benefits or its predecessor, Hartz IV, reached a new high. It was 888,218 at the end of 2022, almost tripling since 2010. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 1.7 million minors with foreign nationality were living in Germany at the end of 2021. The authority has not yet published a more up-to-date number, but writes when asked that by the end of 2022 the number “based on the central register of foreigners” had risen to 2.2 million. The proportion of foreign minors receiving benefits is around 40 percent. This rate includes the flight movement from Ukraine and the high proportion of registered children. In a long-term comparison, the proportion of children with German nationality receiving benefits has fallen again: from 1.37 million in 2010 to around 931,000 children at present.
In relation to all German minors in 2021, this corresponds to 7.7 percent. This development can also be seen in the corresponding social expenditure: annual expenditure for minors with German citizenship fell from 2.58 billion euros in 2010 to 2.1 billion euros last year. Expenditure on children of foreign nationality rose from EUR 668 million to EUR 2.5 billion in the same period. René Springer, labor market policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group, speaks of “long-standing incentives and those newly created by the traffic light to migrate to the social systems”. He calls for a tougher migration policy, including “closing the borders” and switching from cash to benefits in kind. Jessica Tatti, spokeswoman for social policy for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag, takes the opposite view. “If the AfD wants to create a mood against migrants as a whole on the backs of war refugees, that’s just shabby,” she told the “Welt”. In any case, “children have no place in the system for the unemployed.” The traffic light must now implement the planned basic child security as quickly as possible. On the other hand, Stephan Stracke, labor market policy spokesman for the CSU, spoke of the successes of the “strong economic development of the Union-led federal government in recent years”. “With the constant argument within the traffic light, there is no way that the current government will be as successful in combating child poverty as the Union.” Since the causes of the increase in the number of foreign children are largely due to the refugees, it is particularly important to combat the causes of flight. In addition, the state must “do everything possible to get those who are allowed to stay with us permanently into employment quickly and sustainably,” said Stracke.