Workfare

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Demonstration, October 2011.

Workfare is a labor market policy concept that emerged in the USA in the 1990s , which combines state transfer payments with an obligation to take up work. The English term workfare is based on Work + Social Welfare = workfare , ie "work and social welfare", the latter also known as welfare in the USA .

The model is an important element of the social systems, especially in the USA. It aims to “get as many transfer recipients as possible to accept unsubsidized employment on the regular labor market” without additional qualification measures. This differs from other concepts such as the original understanding of citizen work .

idea

Workfare are activation measures that primarily aim to increase job search and acceptance through binding agreements and threats of sanctions. The following three characteristics are decisive:

  1. There is an obligation to participate in the workfare concept with an impact on the rights of those affected: A refusal entails the risk of reducing or canceling social benefits . This also illustrates the implicit assumption of the concept that the reason for unemployment is not primarily a lack of jobs, but a lack of motivation and effort among those affected.
  2. The focus of workfare is on taking up work and less on training and further education measures or other forms of activation. Whether the goal is reintegration into the primary labor market or maintaining employability is initially left open.
  3. Workfare is either a condition for receiving social benefits, or it provides an adequate substitute for them (e.g. through payment of wages). As with social benefits, the prerequisite for participation is the individual need of those affected (cf. Koch et al., 2005).

Example USA / Wisconsin

With its “Wisconsin Works” program in Milwaukee , the US state of Wisconsin is particularly pursuing the workfare idea under the maxims of “no work, no pay” or “Whoever can work must work”. This was implemented in a tiered system of measures:

  • Getting used to work for those who are difficult to place, a maximum of 24 months, 28 hours of work and 12 hours of qualification per week.
  • Municipal service work for those who cannot be placed, a maximum of 9 months with 30 hours of work and 10 hours of training per week.
  • Work on probation with wage subsidies in the primary labor market, for a maximum of 6 months, full working hours and full salary.
  • Regular employment on the primary labor market.

Like almost all employee benefits in the United States, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) limits the benefit from 1996 to two years in a row and five years over the entire professional life.

Germany

The unemployed in Germany have in fact always been obliged to work. In the past, however, this was tied to criteria of reasonableness, in the form of occupational class protection, which decreased over the period of unemployment. Strictly speaking, long-term unemployed people have always been drawn to charitable work, but it was not until the 1990s that some municipalities (Bielefeld, Cologne, Krefeld, Leipzig, Nordhausen, Offenbach, Osnabrück, Paderborn, Pforzheim, Saarbrücken, Siegen and Stuttgart) started model projects that correspond to today's so-called one-euro job model ( job opportunity with additional expense allowance) under unemployment benefit II . Many other municipalities copied these models over the years until the Hartz concept became a nationwide uniform basis. However, to this day only a part of the long-term unemployed are in such measures, while in the pure workfare concept taking up work is compulsory, i.e. it should be implemented for all unemployed.

In Germany, the workfare concept is practiced in the form of one-euro jobs and combined wages . However, alternative approaches to workfare, in particular wage subsidies such as the combined wage or activating social assistance, are discussed again and again. Roland Koch is considered one of the pioneers of this idea.

In the future report 2009 of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia under Jürgen Rüttgers it says: “The resulting incentive to accept such offers instead of a non-profit all-day job offered by the state on the primary labor market, which are currently hardly considered in rational decision-making, can have considerable employment potential mobilize with a simultaneous massive budget relief. ”In July 2009 Horst Seehofer also presented the final report of the future commission of the state of Bavaria, in which a“ more intensive demand for consideration ”for state transfer payments is called for.

As a result of the judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of February 9, 2010 on unemployment benefit II , the question of whether workfare elements in Book Two of the Social Security Code, z. B. Reductions in unemployment benefit II after the rejection of a job that is compatible with the human dignity concept of Art. 1 of the Basic Law.

See also

literature

  • Christian Brütt (2011): Workfare as minimum income: From social welfare to Hartz IV. German social policy 1962 to 2005. Bielefeld: transcript, ISBN 978-3-8376-1509-8 . Reading sample: content and introduction (PDF; 167 kB)
  • Volker Eick, Britta Grell, Margit Mayer, Jens Sambale (2004): Nonprofit Organizations and the Transformation of Local Employment Policy. Westfälisches Dampfboot Verlag, Münster, ISBN 3-89691-564-9
  • Helga Spindler (2003): Promote and Demand - Change of Perspective in Welfare State Action . In: Andrea Grimm (ed.): Forum youth social work, inventory and perspectives for Lower Saxony. Loccumer Protocols 24/02, Rehburg - Loccum 2003, pp. 121-134 ( PDF )
  • Kurt Wyss (2007): Workfare. Social state repression in the spirit of globalized capitalism , Zurich: edition 8, ISBN 978-3-85990-125-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christine Heinz et al.: Model experiment for citizens' work. Between workfare and the social labor market. IAB research report 14/2007, p. 4.
  2. ↑ Susanne Koch, Gesine Stephan, Ulrich Walwei (2005): Workfare: Possibilities and Limits (PDF; 476 kB)
  3. ↑ a b http://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-0A000F0A-BCDECA31/bst/besch.pdf
  4. ↑ See Wolfgang Ayaß : Compulsory work and care work. On the history of “help with work” outside of institutions , in: Frankfurter Arbeitslosenzentrum - FALZ (ed.), Labor Service - acceptable again? Forced to work in history and the welfare state , Frankfurt / M. 1998, pp. 56-79.
  5. ↑ Future Commission of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Report of Working Group 2, From the hoard of old industries to the magnet of modernity? 2009, p. 89.
  6. ↑ Final report of the “Future Social Market Economy” commission, Munich, July 14, 2009, p. 68.
  7. ↑ Telepolis: Thumbscrews don't bring jobs from August 2, 2009
  8. ↑ 1 BvL 1/09, 1 BvL 3/09, 1 BvL 4/09 = BVerfGE 125, 175.
  9. ↑ In detail: Spellbrink, Deutsches Verwaltungsblatt 2011, 661 ff .; Richers / Köpp, Public Administration 2010, 997 ff.