Newspaper: Germany’s planned welfare cuts could hit 8 million people

Around eight million people in Germany could be affected by planned reforms to the country’s social welfare system, according to Ulrich Schneider, a member of the Left Party’s executive board.

Schneider reached the assessment after examining the plans of the governing coalition comprising the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) bloc and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau reported.

Schneider said the austerity policy adopted by Berlin would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable groups in society, particularly people without savings who have struggled with inflation in recent years. He cited inflation of 24%, with food prices rising by as much as 37%.

According to Schneider, the government plans to reduce housing benefits, long-term care benefits and social payments such as child-support advances. It also plans to abolish child benefits in the future, a measure that would affect about 1.5 million children in roughly 600,000 households.

Most of those families already live below the poverty line, he said.

The Left Party said the governing coalition had offered no indication of a positive scenario for the country.

“Instead, they paint apocalyptic scenarios, claiming that we can no longer afford a welfare state. This is just as wrong as it is brazen,” Schneider’s party colleagues said.

The planned measures come as Germany’s government faces pressure to rein in public spending while maintaining support for households struggling with the rising cost of living.

By Tamilla Hasanova