A few weeks ago, Berlin's finance senat published a folder that contained a 3-day meal plan for people who have to live on "Hartz 4", which means 4,25 € per day for food (the overall basic allowance being 347 € for food, clothes, household items, electricity, communications, transport etc., besides separate subsidies for rent and heating).

"Sarrazin: So sollen Arbeitslose einkaufen", Tagesspiegel. The thrifty senator demonstrates that you can even stay below the 4,25 € limit.

In the ensuing debate, former Minister Heiner Geißler (CDU) called this pure cynism: "Heiner Geissler: Kritik an Thilo Sarrazins Hartz-IV-Menu", Tagesspiegel. He took the trouble and calculated the calories of the suggested three daily rations: 1710 kcal for the first day, 1357 kcal for the second, and 1594 kcal for the third. This is even below the recommended calorie intake for people with sedentary life style (about 2400 for men, less for women). By the way, for children, the daily rate is 2,28 €.

Your opinion?

On a sidenote, I read now and then on this forum that social benefits are too generous in Germany, no incitement to look for a job etc. Reading the above articles confirmed my serious doubts about that.

That looks remarkably similar to what I was fed in hospital.

RD, I suspect that the primary problem critics have is with the philosophy that those on the dole should have all expenses paid for them (housing, health care, food, etc.) while a good number of those working full time or more have to struggle to pay for those very same things.

Conquistador, it is true that the working poor come very close to this budget.

But what is the message of the senator's advice to those receiving Hartz IV: 'Look how you can eat well for less than 4 €, and you can even have tea and 3 (!) cookies as a snack. So what are you complaining about?' Isn't that very contemptuous? I don't think that the people living on Hartz IV need to be lectured on shopping in discounters. On the practical side, I doubt that this diet is as healthy and nutritious as he claims.

It could also be argued that many of the people on Hartz IV have paid for this "Freebie" though the unemployment insurance that all employees pay.

It would almost be worthwhile doing this for one month and making a documentary of it à la Minimize Me as opposed to Supersize Me. Germans are said to be too fat anyway, if enough Germans are unemployed and stick to this diet the statistics will become much more positive.

What would you suggest as an alternative? Should they be left to starve on the streets?

That's crazy, no one could realistically live off such a diet. Not enough protein, fats, veg/fruit in there. Couple of months on that and you'd be making use of your health insurance which would negate any savings.

I don't see any evidence that suggests I or anyone else has advocated anything of the sort, thus why do you ask if that's what should happen? Seems like an extreme "solution" to me . If you have any ideas for improvement, let's hear them.

As for whether or not dole payments should cover all necessary expenses, is the amount of unemployment insurance being collected adequate for that purpose? If not, we need to ask why.

I'm not the one with saying he has a problem with the system that does pay for basic necessities. You are. But you didn't answer my question, so I'll ask again; What would you suggest as an alternative?

is 220€ really required every single month for all the other stuff though?

Read very carefully what was posted above, Kat. You have twice misrepresented what I posted.

As for paying all necessary expenses, if there is an unemployment tax designed to fund payments of all necessary expenses, then it should collect enough to meet those needs. If the unemployment tax (recently lowered, BTW) was never designed (after public or parliamentary debate) to pay all expenses, then perhaps we need to have a further public debate as to whether or not it should, and also about how much we are willing as a society to fund for dole payments and perhaps whether or not we expect dole receipients to do a certain amount of public service in return for higher payments.

I don't think I misrepresented what you said. I think perhaps you didn't make yourself clear. When you say 'the primary problem critics have is with the philosophy that those on the dole should have all expenses paid for them (housing, health care, food, etc.)' one assumes you are echoeing your own feelings on the matter.

Kat, is it now clear where I stand? Keep in mind that, AOTBE, higher unemployment taxes discourage employment and high dole payments discourage dole recipients from looking for work, so these disincentives and the overall cost of unemployment insurance have to be balanced against the needs of the unemployed. It's also clear that those over 50 and unemployed face particular difficulties in the job market, so clearly different rules should apply to them.

One area that comes to mind is child care. It is widely acknowledged that it is in short supply. Perhaps those who are unemployed and qualified to do child care can work a 4 hour shift and spend another four hours job-hunting.

b_r, this is where the rest of the dole is supposed to go:


Quoted from Gegen-Hartz.de

I don't think there is any money wasted. When you don't live on the breadline, you don't really notice how much you spend on everyday things.

I thought it was a lame attempt at providing a solution to a complicated problem. I've lived on a poverty diet/budget for a while. It's entirely doable but requires a lot of time/efffort/planning which obviously is something that job-seekers don't have a lot of. OTOH if you know you're headed for a long stretch on next to no money, it's a pretty good idea to learn how to survive it.

We did it by buying the largest quantities we could afford, cooking relatively large quantities, and then freezing some while eating the rest over a couple of days. It's boring of course, but when you're poor you don't have much choice. We used ingredients that were both cheap and nutritious. Cabbage, onions, taters, rice, dried beans, pasta, and almost no meat. It sucked ass and I was glad to be out of that phase. But eating decently on next to no money is possible.

That's a good point. So instead of counting the bread slices and the cents like the senator does, it would perhaps make sense to offer free cooking courses for people on Hartz IV. It requires some skills and knowledge to cook healthily on a very tight budget.

Incidentally, I understand that there are programs for people on Hartz IV, where for a nominal fee of 50 cents or 1 euro, they can go into a supermarket and get day-old bread and other items which aren't at peak freshness but are still very edible and which would otherwise eventually be thrown away by the store.

A good way to save money on food in MUC is to get a "kräutergarten" from the city. For 130 Euro per year (May to November), you get a 60 sq m parcel of land, pre-planted with lots of healthy bio veggies. There's even room to plant other stuff as well. For the past four years, I've split a plot with two other families. By spending many hours weeding & watering, I've had fresh bio veggies for six months, and frozen bio veggies another six months, all for around 43 Euro.

I don't eat meat every day at lunch as this diet suggests, nor do I eat half as much as their breakfast, and I'm not living on Hartz IV. If you ask the older generations (Mom/Dad or Granny/Gramps), they'll tell you at their time only the richest families could afford meat every day, once a week would be the majority of people, and none at all would be the poor people's diet. They still made it through.

I could definitely live healthily on 4 Euros a day for food, much better than advocated in this ridiculous diet. It won't be much fun, but I don't think that's the point here.

This sounds like something for an overweight pooch.

No they havent. The money they payed to the unemployment insurance, they already got payed back as "Arbeitslosengeld". (Although one might argue, that if they had invested that money elsewhere, the return on investment would be better...)
Hartz IV, also called "Arbeitslosengeld II" is what you get, when you dont get ALG I anymore.


Public canteen kitchens that provide healthy food for lower prices?

Ah, shame shacks. Fantastic.

I don't know what people are complaining about here with this diet the guy is suggesting. It sounds like plenty of food to me. The breakfast and lunch are both bigger than what I would usually eat.

I could easily live on this diet.

Not to mention the other points where you're meant to spend your dole:

* Bekleidung und Schuhe...34,13 €
I would no way spend 400 euros a year on clothes, and I have a good job. Ok, I have no interest in clothing, but neither should people with no jobs.

* Freizeit, Unterhaltung, Kultur...38,71 €
You have no job. Instead of going out and having fun, go get a job.

* Beherbergungs- und Gaststättenleistungen...10,33 €
Don't go to the pub when you have no job.

I agree that the it seems like a good diet. it's not great an rather plain, but it's free you're not starving.

Being unemployed is supposed to suck, that's the incentive to get a job.

Are we also talking about people who quit tehir jobs voluntarily but are anyhow on the dole?

If anything, the meal plan illustrates that the Hartz IV benefits really only provide the bare minimum. Food prices are on the rise, and for 130 €, it is almost impossible to buy enough vegetables, fruit, dairy products, meat and fish needed for a healthy diet.

The "kräutergarten" mentioned by MunichMom is a great idea (not only for those on Hartz IV), and Die Tafeln are a charity organization that distributes surplus food donated by grocery shops, as Conquistador explained. The fact that the Tafel locations have spread so much shows that people acually can't make ends meet with Hartz IV.

The amounts for electricity, transport and phone are not realistic, and I also spend more than 400 € for clothes per year (but then I'm a woman )

To sum it up, in the long run, IMO one can hardly subsist on Hartz IV – but many people have to and don't know how to get out of this situation.

Get a Job!!! That's how to get out of that situation.

He claims you can eat a healthy and balanced diet for that?! A lunch of sausage, sauerkraut and smash? Or a dinner of cucumber, spam and coleslaw? http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/0050..._IV_505700a.jpg Mmmmmmm. Not only delicious but nutricious too! If only these dossers knew how to economise!

How patronising. I can't believe that this comes from a so-called "social democrat". It's the sort of thing you'd expect from a Tory.


Exactly! They are such miserable slackers. There's no excuse for preparing a few applications on their home computers, buying some nice stationary, posting them, ringing round a few companies and dusting down their Hugo Boss suits for the interview!

Remember, this guy sees how much everything in the budget costs, which I suspect has a strong effect on his opinion.

On a TV discussion last night, he was clearly more comfortable talking about statistics than human beings. He questioned whether people on Hartz IV who have to visit soup kitchens really could be categorised as "poor".

No doubt he's tucking into a lunch of spam and sauerkraut right now.

Once again the remnants of a messed up system rears it head...

This is only a small example of how it shapes attitudes and affects lives...

Well of course people should be contributing to society and if they don't then we either let them rot or carry them by the throat until they finally choke.

Capitalism... works fucking wonders for most of us, but for those left by the wayside as others wade in their affluence... it is just plain bad fucking luck.

Hoards of people being fucked over by a complete corporate agenda and we complain about a couple of people who can't be bothered getting off their asses.

Billions in ever increasing record profits, whilst laying off thousands of workers and we want to complain about some guy getting next to fuck all to survive on until he can get him and his family out of the shit...

The priorities are are all fucked up.

hmm, I think in the overall perspective the unemployed in Germany cant really be described as being "left to rot or carried by the throat until they choke", still, sounds better that way when trying to make a point I guess

Read this morning about some fat bloke taking up a legal case against a prison for them only feeding him 3000 kcal per day.

I wouldn't like only having €4 a day for food man, that'd be totally rubbish. I could certainly do it, and I think my little sister only spends marginally more that to feed a family of four. Mind you, they eat utter crap sometimes. Lentils is NOT dinner, unless you do something like infuse them with shitloads of goose and bacon fat, and whack a 350g bit of pan roasted cod fillet on top. That'd probably cost alot more than 4 quid.

It may help reduce the world food shortage though.

Most of the time, if you REALLY want a job you can find one - it might not be the one you'd want to do, but something can generally be found. The problem used to be, that alot of those jobs paid about the same as the Arbeitsamt. My cousin was in a situation like this some years ago (before H4) she lost her job and she did find a new one, but it paid 10€ a month less than the Arbeitslosengeld did, she took it anyway because it was important to her to work and she didn't want a huge gap on her CV, in the end that job lead to a promotion and she really loves it + is earning much more now. At the time it was a tough call though, taking the job would have meant having less money than not taking it (when you take the travel costs to and fro work into account etc. - the job was about 100km away). It has to be remembered that H4 only kicks in for the long-term unemployed. A friend of mine survived quite well on it for a while and has only recently looked for a job (part-time) and found it.

You know while they are at it, they can stop eating food and start fasting. That will be way cheaper for everyone.

That's certainly not what I meant!! What I was trying to say is that no system is perfect - if being unemployed meant a great life then hey, everyone would sign up...obviously nobody should go without food (although my mum often did and she wasn't unemployed), but if being unemployed meant you could afford steak everyday then where's the incentive to find a job?!

edit: the inital arbeitslosengeld before the H4 kicks in is more than sufficient (it was for me anyway, when I spent a month without a job), then it gradually decreases from there. It's not like the H4 is what you get straight away.

That's not what I meant! People who lost their jobs are already feeling bad that they don't have a job. Proposing that they stick to some diet plan and eat less is not definitely going to make them feel better. I was sarcastically critizing the diet plan.

Of course and I find the diet plan a bit ridiculous, I guess he was trying to make a point...

Most of those people will probably do everything they can to work again and spend their days writing countless applications (I remember those days...you feel like you're working in a factory churning out one application after another). H4 was thought of to deal with the long-term unemployed who's 'job' for the Arbeitsamt has become their chosen career path (heck, I went to school with people, albeit in the UK, who's ambition it was upon leaving school to get a council flat and live off the dole just like mummy did). From what I can see on the tinternet, people over the age of 58 receive Arbeitslosengeld 1 for 24months before Hartz II and then III etc. kicks in. For people under 58 I can't seem to find a concrete statement (just says max 18months).

edit: Arbeitslosengeld I is 60% of previous salary or 67% for people with kids.

exactly the intention...

But i was referring in a more general sense to the whole capitalism shebang... you know, leaving major populations in whole countries to starve because they can't participate in the world economy, whilst the other live what could be classed well above the average...

I'm simply saying the system is flawed. (But that's also a conversation I've already had on here.)

One problem with rants such as this is that they simply don't make sense. You're complaining the capitalism is causing people to starve because they cannot take part in...capitalism. How that is the fault of capitalism is beyond me. A person starves in North Korea due to a lack of capitalism (among other things)- just as was the case in Mao's China.

conquistador things are not so black and white.

Take the impending food crisis:

if you turn on the news you are bound to get "riots in haiti" "starvation in africa" "people no longer can afford food"

and then they are quick to blame ethanol production for the increase in crop price

they are only telling you half the story

the truth is that market speculation is very much to blame for the obscene increase in prices, right now you can make a lot of money trading in wheat, corn, whatever you may in the global markets

add to that that some big producers are hoarding large quantities of stock so they can get more value

the capitalist system is severely flawed and it's pretty much global, meaning that no country on earth is able to escape capitalist economics

but the thing is like a brick house built on shaky ground it's very frail and I'm 100% sure it's bound to collapse sooner or later

You are a Milton Friedman wannabe!

You seem like Communists, Pleb and Belloc.

As expected, you have no solutions, just innuendos and attitudes.

The ethanol subsidies are a major factor- farmers want them, so they plant corn instead of wheat. Capitalism isn't responsible for poor rainfall in Australia and the US in recent years, which is also a cause of increase in wheat prices.

The solution is to increase supply, i.e., crop yields.

Do you need to find a box for me..?
Is it not possible to have thoughts that are not categorised into a neat little box where nothing falls outside the standard parameters?

How do you characterize yourself Pleb?

Also seems that you don't have a problem putting me into a box.

How about coming up with a solution?