Survey on new citizen's benefit in Germany in November 2022
More than half of respondents answered that they considered the new citizen's benefit, which is intended to replace unemployment benefit II (Hartz IV), to be bad. In contrast, 35 percent of respondents rated the new citizen's benefit as good.
The citizen's benefit was passed by the German Bundestag in November 2022 as one of the Social Democratic Party's (SPD) major election campaign promises, but was defeated by the Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU)-led federal states in the German Bundesrat. The bill was passed in December 2022 after alterations concerning stricter sanctions if job offers are rejected by beneficiaries.