Calls to Hold Children Responsible for Unemployed Parents

Currently, the German government assumes that young people who earn their own income, but still live at home, must help support their unemployed parents. This is the case if a separation of finances within one household has not been clearly defined.

If the parents and children share one household and financial division has not been laid out, then the parents' unemployment payments are reduced according to the income and assets of their children.

Even unemployed non-relatives are affected

The law even goes one step further: it also applies to unemployed siblings, uncles, aunts and non-relatives living in one household. The age of the "child" earning the income does not matter. Even if the employed young person is younger than 25, unemployment payments to parents or other household members are still reduced if the working "child" is living at home.

Now, secretary general of the Christian Democrats (CDU), Ronald Pofalla, said he wants to extend the law for parents and children not sharing the same household. Pofalla said that just as a working father supports his son under 25, so should "a 30-something son support his unemployed father over 50 if he is financially able to do so."

Proposal reaps criticism

Pofalla's fellow CDU members, however, have criticized his demands. Marco Wanderwitz, chair of the youth wing of the CDU parliamentary group, told the German daily Handelsblatt that Pofalla's suggestion will make an entire (younger) generation think twice about whether it is worth it trying to make a living in Germany.

Social affairs associations are also against Pofalla's proposal.

"Thirty-year-olds cannot begin their careers, start families, support their parents and still save for retirement," said Adolf Bauer, president of the German Association for Social Affairs. Bauer added that Germany's social welfare system, and not the family, if responsible for supporting the unemployed.

Olaf Scholz, managing director of the parliamentary party of the Social Democrats, with whom Pofalla's CDU governs in coalition, added that his party will not agree to such a change.

"...Proposal must sound like a threat"

Saxony's CDU secretary general Michael Kretschmer also criticized Pofalla's proposal.

"Given the high unemployment in this country, such a proposal must sound like a threat, especially to people in the eastern German states (where unemployment is even higher)," he said. Kretschmer added the CDU should not demand too much of people.

"The number of millionaire sons with fathers receiving unemployment benefits seems to me to be quite minimal," Kretschmer said. He said most people in Germany are stretched thin enough in trying to support their children and save more money for retirement at the same time.