hard
The verb hartzen colloquially denotes making a living through unemployment benefit II . The term refers to the Hartz concept . In 2009, "hartzen" was voted youth word of the year .
Criticism of the term
Hendrik Werner commented in the daily newspaper Die Welt that the youth word “hartzen” in 2009 casts “no good light on the perception of social reality”. Anyone who uses the word and means “gammeln” has “no differentiated idea of all the adversities, humiliations and frustrations” that “an unwanted phase of life” under the Hartz IV sign “can bring with it.” The new definition of the term by young people is “ clearly negative, if not even socially Darwinistic ”.