Long debates about the Paus project
Basic child protection passes the cabinet
September 27, 2023, 2:23 p.m
The Green Family Minister Paus is launching basic child welfare. The cabinet approves the draft law. And this after a months-long dispute with Finance Minister Lindner over the financial resources of the project.
After months of dispute, the federal government has launched its central plan to combat child poverty. The cabinet approved Family Minister Lisa Paus’s draft law for basic child welfare. This will now be discussed in the Bundestag in the next step. According to the SPD, adoption in the Federal Council is not planned until February 2, 2024.
The project is intended to bundle and in some cases expand several state benefits, from child benefit to citizen’s benefit to child allowance for low-income families. Through greater clarity and a central platform, families who have previously not been able to access the money due to them due to ignorance or bureaucratic hurdles should also be reached.
The project has repeatedly caused controversy in the traffic light coalition in recent weeks. In particular, Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the FDP and Family Minister Lisa Paus from the Greens argued about financing – both finally reached an agreement at the end of August.
Family service provides information about claims
In the year of introduction in 2025, the traffic light is initially estimated to cost around 2.4 billion euros in additional costs. Government circles had also said that if the use of basic child welfare benefits increased, the costs could rise to up to six billion euros in the following years.
What is new is that families will in future be informed directly by Family Service about possible claims. In doing so, the federal government wants to draw conclusions from the experience that so far many families have not received the benefits they are entitled to because they did not seek it themselves. “In this way, basic child security creates a system change – away from the obligation of citizens to collect children and towards the obligation of the state to provide them,” explained Paus.
The federal government is thus creating “an effective safety net for all children and their families,” explained the minister. “We are reducing hidden poverty in Germany by reaching more families and children in need of support than before.”
Paus praises “great progress”
The basic child benefit consists of an income-independent child guarantee amount for all children and young people, which corresponds to today’s child benefit, an income-dependent child supplementary amount staggered according to age, as well as benefits for education and participation. These three components together are intended to help ensure a child’s minimum subsistence level.
Minister Paus emphasized that the child guarantee amount for all children will in future be automatically adjusted to price developments. “This is a big step forward from the status quo,” she explained.
However, it is unclear whether basic child support can start as planned on January 1, 2025. The Federal Employment Agency (BA), whose family fund is supposed to be responsible, considers this to be unrealistic given the technical preparations required.