Two-Thirds of Unemployment Benefits in Germany Go to . . .

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“Wir schaffen das!” — “We can do this” — was former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s claim in 2015, when she opened wide the doors to more than a million Muslim immigrants that year. In other words, “we can integrate these people, we can make them part of our society.” One more bit of evidence that Merkel was woefully wrong in her cheery optimism: it turns out that instead of those Muslim migrants becoming productive citizens contributing to the country’s economy, many of them instead have remained recipients of welfare benefits of all kinds for years beyond what Merkel anticipated. They receive free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education (or vocational training), family allowances, unemployment benefits (even without an employment record in Germany) and more. It has now come to light that migrants now receive two-thirds of the unemployment benefits paid out by the state. More on this disturbing statistic can be found here: “Two-thirds of unemployment benefit recipients in Germany are migrants as cost to taxpayer skyrockets by 122% since 2010,” by Thomas Brooke, Remix News, May 21, 2024:

Nearly two-thirds of German residents receiving unemployment benefits have a migration background, new figures from the Federal Employment Agency have revealed.

The statistics published by the federal agency and cited by the Die Welt broadsheet showed that 63.1 percent of those in receipt of the so-called citizen’s income, or “Bürgergeld,” are of migrant origin, and “most do not have a German passport.”

The German newspaper explained that while employment figures are increasing year-over-year, “because the Federal Republic has long allowed very high immigration of low-skilled people, the number of migrants who are unemployed and receiving social benefits is also increasing.”…

Why did the German government allow in the low-skilled and uneducated migrants, who were almost certain to fail in an advanced economy like that of Germany? These are the people least likely to be hired, most likely to be fired, and consequently those most likely to be unemployed. The Federal Republic could have required would-be immigrants to have attained a certain educational level, or proof of vocational training in certain skills needed in the German economy, but instead the government let in, without distinction, anyone able to make it across the German border.

In 2013, the percentage of the German population with a migration background was 20 percent, with 43 percent of benefit recipients being migrants. Today, 29 percent of the German population are foreign-born and 63 percent of unemployment benefits are handed to migrants….

The foreign-born population in Germany inexorably rises: from 20% in 2013 to 29% today, or a 50% rise in little more than a decade. And there is a concomitant rise in the percentage of benefit recipients who are foreign-born, from 43% in 2013 to 63%— nearly two-thirds — today.

The number of German recipients of welfare benefits has been halved since 2010. The Germans are famously hard-working, unafraid to retrain where necessary in new fields, like solar energy and the production of electric vehicles, so as to possess the skills necessary in a rapidly changing economy. But the largely unskilled foreign nationals seem stuck in a rut of their own making. They are happy to pocket the generous welfare benefits provided by the state, which only decreases their motivation to work. During the same 15-year-period when German unemployment has halved, the number of foreign nationals receiving welfare payments has doubled. Clearly, the Germans have been admitting the wrong kind of immigrants.

Instead of admitting immigrants without distinction, René Springer of the anti-mass migration party AfD says that the government needs to change its immigration policy, to admit only the educated and the highly skilled, who can at once become productive members of the society. The guiding principle, he suggests, is to make sure that the government’s immigration policy does not allow in those who will at once be recipients of the cornucopia of welfare benefits that the generous German state provides. He also suggests that the guaranteed income known as “Burgergeld” should be abolished, as it acts merely as a “magnet” for more immigrants to choose to come to Germany.

The German immigration policy should also take into account those who, experience shows, have the most difficulty in integrating into Germany society. Muslims by and large do not integrate into Western societies; they regard the indigenous Germans as Infidels who, as the Qur’an instructs, are “the most vile of created beings.” How can they, the Muslims who know that they are the “best of peoples,” possibly want to live according to laws and rules set down by such people? They pocket every welfare benefit they can, unashamedly, for they regard those benefits from the German state as a kind of proleptic jizyah.

Here is how Germany might reform its immigration laws:

First, it could insist that immigrants have at least a high-school education, and proof of a marketable skill, such as is needed in electrical work, plumbing, construction.

Second, it could make immigrants ineligible to receive the“Burgergeld.”

Third, it could restrict access to welfare benefits, by prohibiting immigrants from receiving them during the first five years of their residence in Germany.

Fourth, the state should end the policy of family reunification, that has allowed Muslims in particular to bring in their large extended families. No “anchor” immigrants will be allowed to bring in, after they have been admitted, dozens of people who are claimed to be family relatives.

Fifth, quickly deport back to their countries of origin any migrants convicted of a crime, after they have served their sentences. If the sentence is a short one, less than three years, don’t even bother to imprison them; just deport them. That will be punishment enough.

That’s what I would call a good start.