At the invitation of the Alliance Council of the Alliance for Human Dignity and Work, which is active in the Heinsberg and Viersen districts as well as in Mönchengladbach and Krefeld, the senior professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Gerhard Bäcker, came to the premises of the Volksverein Mönchengladbach. Bäcker, who has been dealing with questions of social policy for many decades, knows the city of Mönchengladbach and its social situation well, having worked for many years at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences. Sitting at the table were a member of the alliance and former managing director of the Volksverein, Hermann-Josef Kronen, Wolfgang Fels, managing director of the Alliance for Human Dignity and Work, and Hartmut Wellssow, a founding member of the alliance.
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At the end of the year, the alliance contacted Gerhard Bäcker and asked him to examine the new government’s coalition agreements with regard to the situation of people who belong to the socially disadvantaged. Before Bäcker described his assessment of the social situation, he emphasized the great importance of the work of the Volksverein in Mönchengladbach. Such a commitment does not exist in every city, he emphasized.
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According to Bäcker, a coalition agreement contains declarations of intent. Nobody can predict what will happen in the respective government. The consequences of the corona pandemic had not yet been overcome when war broke out in Ukraine. “The global economy is facing major problems,” says Bäcker. The expected higher inflation will always hit the socially disadvantaged harder than the socially stronger.
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In Mönchengladbach, 18 percent of all employed people apply for Hartz IV, although there are many who, for whatever reason, do not make use of the entitlement. The city thus has a very high proportion of Hartz IV recipients. Your standard requirement rate has been increased from 446 to 449 euros. “Is that enough to live on?” asks Baker. The government has promised everyone an energy subsidy – albeit according to the watering can principle. For Hartz IV recipients there are two one-time payments of 100 euros each. Bäcker calculated that this results in a monthly sum of 16.70 euros, which does not even absorb the inflation rate.
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The sensitive subject areas such as the mini-jobs, basic child security (the city of Mönchengladbach is one of the five most burdened Municipalities of Germany – a third of the children grow up with Hartz IV for a long time), the need to integrate those from the Ukraine refugees teased baker in his lecture.“The crisis must be overcome together and must not be at the expense of the socially disadvantaged,” he said.
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In such a crisis, institutions like the People’s Association provide some relief. Kronen emphasized that the association had launched new job and qualification offers, that there were places where people could exchange ideas. “They are small signposts,” he describes the low-threshold offers.
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The people’s association should not hide its light under a bushel, countered Bäcker: “Community comes from below.”
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