Andreas Ehrholdt, from the 400-person village of Woltersdorf in Saxony-Anhalt, also knows what unemployment means. He lost his job as a transport worker for the East German Railroad right after the collapse of the GDR. After that he never really got back on his feet. He tried starting his own business, first as a security guard, then as a pizza maker. Ehrholdt completed a retraining program to become an office administrator. But then he couldn’t find a job. But he became well-known after deciding to revive the Monday demonstrations held in Magdeburg during the Wende in 1989-90. This time, however, the demonstrations were to protest unemployment. “It’s the last straw. Enough talking, it’s time to take to the streets.” Ehrholdt made 200 posters advertising his demonstration and got a police permit for the first one on Cathedral Square. The officers asked him how many people he expected. Ehrholdt shrugged his shoulders. “Make it 100,” suggested the policeman. “Come on, don’t be so pessimistic,” the organizer said, “At least 200.” In the end there were 600. And last Monday there were 6,000. For the coming Monday Ehrholdt registered 12,000. Other cities are following suit – people will be hitting the streets in Leipzig, Dresden, and Suhl. A prominent Social Democrat even gave them his blessings: “Whoever becomes unemployed will wind up in the poverty trap with Hartz IV,” wrote theologian Friedrich Schorlemmer in Neues Deutschland. “The SPD is digging its own grave.” The wave of indignation that is crashing over Eastern Germany could soon have its first political consequences. Pollsters are predicting large gains for the PDS in the upcoming state parliament [Landtag] elections. In Brandenburg, where Manfred Stolpe [SPD] once got 54 percent of the vote, his successor Matthias Platzeck could fall victim to the mixture of public outrage and fear-mongering that PDS candidate Dagmar Enkelmann is presently fanning on the campaign trail. Hartz IV, declared SPD social minister Günter Baaske, “Could break our necks.” The anger is hitting leading politicians in general. Now Saxony’s CDU minister president Georg Milbradt has to worry about securing the absolute majority he supposedly had in the bag at one point. Last week, pollsters suddenly predicted only forty-four percent for him. Now he sounds just like the PDS, saying that Hartz IV needs to be stopped and delayed.
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In fact, though, the “greatest social reform in history” (Clement) will affect our country’s roughly three million long-term unemployed to very different degrees. Those who earned a lot before losing their jobs – or who live with a partner who is well off – will have to endure drastic cuts in benefits in some areas. But many low earners with children, along with the roughly one million employable welfare recipients, will fare better than they do today. In the future, the state will not only pay their contributions to the health, long-term care, and retirement insurance fund. In contrast to the present regulations, they will also be able to have an “appropriate motor vehicle,” and they won’t need to fear that the government will demand the benefits back from their parents or children. Equally false is the idea spread by politicians of all shades that the reform will take the last penny of savings from the long-term jobless, thereby “punishing those who are saving for old age,” as CDU minister president of Saarland Peter Müller lamented. The opposite is true. Presently, a fifty-year-old recipient of unemployment benefits is only allowed to have securities, savings, or life insurance policies totaling 10,000 Euros. Anyone who has saved more for a rainy day can be forced by the government to live first from the accumulated capital. For welfare recipients, the current limit on allowable assets [Schonvermögen] is only 1,279 Euros. With Hartz IV, however, the situation is far better: The savings allowance increases to 20,000 Euros, and “Riester” pension plans, an “appropriate” home, and assets from parents or children who do not reside in the household cannot be applied against the benefits.
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