Tuesday, January 11, 2022
40 percent from the state
Heil wants to subsidize household help costs
Around three million households in Germany employ domestic help – a large proportion of them are not registered, so they work illegally. Labor Minister Heil wants to change that: With grants, people with normal incomes should also be able to afford household help.
Families, single parents and caring relatives are to receive 40 percent of the costs from the state when they employ domestic help. “We expect an expenditure of 400 million euros a year in the initial stage,” said Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil from the SPD. In the coming years, the system should be expanded step by step and opened up to other households.
The SPD, Greens and FDP had agreed to promote household services in the coalition agreement. Heil affirmed that domestic help should be removed from undeclared work and that more regular employment should be created. Particularly challenged people would be relieved in everyday life. The program for everyday helpers can also be expected to generate additional income through taxes and social security contributions.
Household checks are supposed to make everyday life easier
According to Heil, the planned subsidies, so-called household checks, should make everyday life a little easier for people with normal incomes. You should be able to afford legally employed domestic help. “I have a technical solution in mind, for example in the form of an app, which can be used unbureaucratically to book household help subject to social insurance contributions from a service provider,” said Heil. “Of course you will have to pay your own contribution.”
The state will contribute 40 percent. According to the coalition agreement, the allowances and the existing tax incentives are to be offset. “We will introduce this system and initially open it to families with children, to single parents and to people who have relatives in need of care.”
The German trade union federation had proposed a similar model and already welcomed the announcements of the traffic light coalition as a signal against undeclared work. Today, millions of households in Germany have their apartments and houses cleaned by irregular workers. According to an OECD study last year, an estimated 75 percent of the work in the field is not registered. In many other countries and in the OECD average, the proportion of undeclared housework for money is significantly lower.
IW: black workers in 2.9 million households
In a publication, the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) assumed that around 3.3 million households in Germany occasionally or regularly employ help – and of these around 2.9 million households are black.
According to the OECD study, domestic work is more established than legal employment in other countries. The employees in this area make up 2.5 percent of the total workforce in Spain, Portugal and France – but only 0.1 percent in Poland and the Czech Republic. According to this, Germany is in the lower range with less than 0.5 percent.
The plans are also intended to help ensure that work and family can be better reconciled. The working hours of women are on average well below those of men, said Heil.