Families in comparison – social assistance versus work: the Wels case is exciting

Based on the debate about a Syrian family with seven children who receive a net 4,600 euros in Vienna – without working, only through state aid – the channel will broadcast a report on this topic tonight at 9:10 p.m., which is being hotly debated throughout Austria.

The focus is on a family from Upper Austria whose income does not come close to that of the Syrian family, despite the parents working full-time. The large family with seven children lives near Wels, both father and mother teach via wifi.

Despite the parents working full-time, the family has less money available each month – between 4,000 and 4,500 euros net per month, twelve times a year, on a fee basis – than if they were doing ‘nothing’ in Vienna. For comparison, the family in Vienna receives 4,600 euros per month in social benefits, paid 14 times a year:

• The two adults receive 809.09 euros per month.
• Plus a surcharge of 51.01 euros per item because there are minors living in the household.
• In addition, there is 312.08 euros per child – the family has seven children, one of whom does not qualify according to a corresponding report in the free newspaper “Heute”.
• In addition, there is 995.46 euros in rental assistance.

“We are not much below it, but we are below it.”
Subsidies for school trips, bus, train or ORF allowances are only available to recipients of social assistance. The family said: “It is impossible for two people to work and our income is actually below the average in Vienna. Not much, but we belong.”

According to their own statements, the family does not feel any envy, but they do not find this system fair: “You must not understand that we are jealous. But it would be much more useful to get people to work.”

It is not only the Welser family who thinks this: there needs to be a reform of social security, says the ÖVP and looks at social democratic Denmark. The rules for social benefits are much stricter there.

Survey: Austrians demand stricter social security rules
ServusTV has also commissioned a current OGM study on this topic. That is why the Austrians are also demanding stricter rules for social assistance and a nationwide uniform system.

According to the survey, 71 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents are in favor of the ‘Upper Austrian model’ in terms of minimum security (including significantly less social assistance, introduction of compulsory German, restriction of social benefits for those entitled to subsidiary protection at the level of basic care).

75 percent were in favor of waiting a few years before receiving the full amount of social benefits. A demand that has been increasingly formulated in politics recently – for example by ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer. And – another increasingly popular measure – 80 percent support benefits in kind instead of cash.