The Bundestag has moved forward with the planned tightening of the Bürgergeld. In a recorded vote on Thursday, 321 members supported restructuring the Bürgergeld into a new basic security scheme, while 268 opposed it and two abstained.
A key point of the reform is the renaming of the social minimum‑income support from “Bürgergeld” to “Grundsicherungsgeld”. This change is accompanied by stricter participation requirements and harsher sanction threats. Beneficiaries who abandon a support measure or fail to apply will face a stronger reduction in their cash benefits than before. The standard needs calculation can be decreased by 30 % for each period of three months.
The law also introduces a tiered procedure for people who miss scheduled appointments at a Job‑Center three times consecutively. At the end of this procedure, a claimant’s right to benefits may be entirely withdrawn if they remain unreachable.
According to the reform text, eligible beneficiaries who are capable of work will be required to “deploy their labor to the maximum reasonable extent”.
