Well This Is A Reform…..

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But in which direction does it lead…….?

German lawmakers approved a bill Friday that would allow older unemployed people to collect jobless benefits for longer than previously planned, a move that comes as the government struggles in polls ahead of elections expected in September.

In unpopular reform introduced earlier this year gradually scales down benefits for the long-term jobless to the level of social welfare payments. The new bill would give unemployed people above age 45 an extra two years of full-level benefits.

The Lisbon agenda, and all our policies associated with the ‘ageing society’ ar meant to lead to higher particpation rates in the over 55 age group, it isn’t clear to say the least how this fits in with that.

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About Edward Hugh

Edward 'the bonobo is a Catalan economist of British extraction. After being born, brought-up and educated in the United Kingdom, Edward subsequently settled in Barcelona where he has now lived for over 15 years. As a consequence Edward considers himself to be "Catalan by adoption". He has also to some extent been "adopted by Catalonia", since throughout the current economic crisis he has been a constant voice on TV, radio and in the press arguing in favor of the need for some kind of internal devaluation if Spain wants to stay inside the Euro. By inclination he is a macro economist, but his obsession with trying to understand the economic impact of demographic changes has often taken him far from home, off and away from the more tranquil and placid pastures of the dismal science, into the bracken and thicket of demography, anthropology, biology, sociology and systems theory. All of which has lead him to ask himself whether Thomas Wolfe was not in fact right when he asserted that the fact of the matter is "you can never go home again".

One thought on “Well This Is A Reform…..”

  1. This bill will die in the upper house, at least in the present form.
    The CDU proposal is to have the length initial unemployment benefits are paid depend stronger on the length of paying contribution.
    This is a small partial reversal from the earlier spending cuts, but it may help increase consumer confidence, so it isn’t necessarily all that bad.

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