parental allowance debate
Now the Union counters with this proposal for parental allowance
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The debate about parental allowance continues: The Union wants to expand parental allowance instead of cutting it for high earners. This is intended to encourage fathers to take more parental leave.
At the beginning of July it became known that Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) plans to cap parental allowance from a taxable annual income of 150,000 euros. The income limit is currently 300,000 euros.
The outcry was great: the entrepreneur Verena Pausder started a petition against the cut plans, which has since been signed more than 590,000 times. “The cancellation of parental allowance is a catastrophic signal against children, against the compatibility of work and family in partnership and against equal opportunities for men and women – none of this is progress, but a massive step backwards!”, says the text of the petition.
New parental allowance bonus for fathers?
Now the Union jumps on the bandwagon and calls for an increase in parental benefits instead of a reduction. More precisely: CDU and The CSU are in favor of extending the parental benefit period by a further two months to up to 16 months. “We also want to encourage fathers to use parental leave more than before. We want to create a new parental allowance bonus for this: If both father and mother take parental leave, the entitlement to parental allowance should increase by a further two months (12+4),” the “Bild” quotes the CSU as saying.
The planned capping of parental allowance for high earners is highly controversial. While some are up in arms about the planned cut, others are calling for much more support for families in vulnerable circumstances. Only recently it became known that the Family Ministry will have significantly less money available for the planned basic child security than planned: Instead of twelve billion euros a year, Lisa Paus is only planning with two to seven billion euros. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had previously said that he would only like to estimate two billion euros a year for the reform.
Sources used: Bild.de, Tagesspiegel, Zeit.de
This article first appeared on ELTERN.de.