Parental Benefit Reduction Causes Financial Worries for Expectant Couple

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The editors of the NEUE RUHR ZEITUNG (NRZ) spoke to a young couple who would lose their entitlement to parental allowance under the new rule from the Ministry of Family Affairs. As the Parental benefit reduction unsettles the familydescribes the correspondent for federal politics Christiane Rebhan.

Natalie Z. is an expectant mother and head of strategy at a German Internet company. Her partner Pascal K. works as a strategist in a German pharmaceutical company. Both plan to take six months of parental leave. According to Rebhan, Natalie would like to stay with her child longer, but forgoing a complete income was not an option for the couple. But the youngest Plans from the Ministry of Family Affairs thwart their plans. Because with a joint taxable annual income of 235,000 euros, they would no longer receive parental allowance after the birth of the child.

In view of their family plans, the Berliners recently moved into a larger apartment. The couple plans Fixed costs of around 4600 euros per month. In addition, Natalie has private health insurance due to her income – “this means that she has to pay the company’s share of the insurance contribution herself during parental leave,” explains Rebhan. In addition, the well-trained employee pays back a monthly student loan for her business studies abroad. “I feel let down,” quotes the NRZ Natalie. “It would be the first time that I get financial support from the state, now that doesn’t apply either.”

In view of the discussed reduction in parental allowance, the young couple is now considering to take a total of six months of parental leave instead of one year. But if both return to their jobs earlier, the child will need childcare – and even that is difficult to find. The couple is now hoping that the threshold of 150,000 euros will be raised again.

Editor’s Notes

Christiane Rebhan is a correspondent for federal politics at the central editorial office of FUNKE MEDIENGRUPPE. She mainly reports on the CDU/CSU, she also focuses on the Federal Ministries for Digital Affairs and Transport as well as Labor and Social Affairs. Until February 2023 she was parliamentary correspondent at BUSINESS INSIDER, where she represented the Greens and the CDU was responsible. She worked for BILD as a state parliament correspondent and for the STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG as an editor for politics and sports. Rebhan studied political science and history at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen and Nuremberg.

Die NEUE RUHR ZEITUNG (NRZ) is a regional newspaper from North Rhine-Westphalia that has been published since 1946 and has its editorial office in Essen. After the Second World War, Dietrich Oppenberg received a license to publish a newspaper from the British military administration. One of the co-licensees was the SPD-Politician Wilhelm Nieswandt, who later became mayor of Essen. A Social Democratic newspaper was licensed by the British under the system of external pluralism. After that there would be several competing newspapers, with different but clearly defined worldviews. In the western Ruhr area it appears under the name NEUE RUHR ZEITUNG, in the Lower Rhine under the name NEUE RHEIN ZEITUNG. The newspaper belongs to the Funke media group and maintains thirteen local editorial offices. The national pages of the newspaper are written by a central editorial office together with the WESTDEUTSSCHE ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG (WAZ) and the WESTFÄLISCHE ZEITUNG. The circulation is not shown separately within the newspapers that belong to the Funke media group in North Rhine-Westphalia. Their paid circulation was around 370,000 copies in the first quarter of 2023.