(Epilogue; 00-04; p.3)

What has been a firm guide-line, however, since the decision has been made, was that the generalised social benefits should be moulded along the lines of the former existing social benefits for the needy. (A very informative expert’s report in German about the new regulations is published by Germany’s "Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband", a roof organisation of charities.)
Not dealing with all the details, a core stipulation for benefits is the so called "Regelsatz", freely translated "base money", which does not only affect poor unemployed, but also poor pensioners, persons with low-income, disabled people and asylum seekers.

How much base money is stipulated is a political decision since it should no longer just guarantee a person’s physical existence, but enable the person to participate in social life. – The minimum for physical existence had been calculated from a trolley with necessary and typical goods, thus could have been quite objectively measured; a now applied participation model is open for interpretation, on the other hand.

So, where’s the beef? Plainly and matter-of-fact: apart from payments for rent and heating of adequate flats a West German gets about 350 Euro per month, being obliged to save up 50 Euro of it for furniture or clothes replacements – former extra payments for that have been cancelled.
(Even in terms of poverty there are still different measurements for East and West Germans: base money is less for people living in East Germany, while prices converge. The historic irony lies in the fact that with former chancellor H Kohl German unity has been achieved and nowadays has been overcome with a very big coalition.)

By the end of 2004, about 2,3 million adult East and West Germans are registered for the new social benefits.

Is it nice to name names? – No. So, let’s just say that there was a civil servant in a relevant ministry. He thought it necessary to utter that base money has been raised in 2004 by three Euro, so things have to be seen in relations. Rightly so: put in relation to the civil servant’s salary before taxes, the rise in a month’s base money can be earned by him in just over five minutes. (read on here)