You're leaving out a ton of information there. The 500 Euros is after everything else has been paid for. There's also lots of benefits like Kindergeld, money for each child you have.
People living out of it are living in absolute misery, well under the poverty line.
German welfare guarantees you food, an apartment for you and your children, public schooling, funding for school projects and even includes money for social gatherings.
To portray this as "absolute misery" is false to the point of being dishonest and you're being unfair to billions of people living in pitiful states of poverty.
Are these people better than those in Gaza? Sure but their life is still insanely hard.
You said you lived this way for the first 18 years of your life, then ask your parents how much sacrifices they made so you can feel this comfortable. If you never skipped meal because you could not afford food, be sure that your parents were and just hid it from you out of dignity.
To others: This thread is full of propaganda from the neoliberal and extreme right like this. Don't believe a single bit, they do not describe the state of the country nor how the policies work. It is a common wave of propaganda though and maybe interesting from that side.
I could also have picked electricity costs as a different cost of living that is not covered at all.
Yep. That's where "Wohngeld" comes in.
> This thread is full of propaganda from the neoliberal and extreme right like this
This is not true. I live in Germany. I have family members in the system on both sides. I read news from all isles.
Fact is, our social welfare state is unmatched compared to any other country. Nowhere else will you get welfare benefits this high. Our welfare benefits are so high, the sudden drop in benefits reduces benefits from earning more money by insane margins. There is a good calculation example here [1]
Wenn Sie Bürgergeld erhalten, haben Sie keinen Anspruch auf Wohngeld. Allerdings ist Wohngeld eine vorrangige Leistung. Wenn Sie dadurch Ihre Hilfebedürftigkeit beseitigen oder vermeiden können, können Sie einen Wohngeldantrag stellen (ab dem 1. Juli 2023 sind Sie verpflichtet, einen Wohngeldantrag zu stellen).
What makes it rightwing propaganda is taking these cases and claiming that it would explain why people don't want to work anymore - which is not true, neither the connection nor that people don't want to work. And to combine it with the statement that the welfare benefits are high, when they are not - the problem, if there is one, is that earned money reduces the benefits 100%, instead of on a sliding scale. It's not the amount, as in 99% of scenarios being on state welfare completely sucks in Germany, it's the scenario of not having enough money for food at the end of the month, being scared to heat in the winter and each unforeseen bill a mayor crisis.
Also, it is also not okay to not mention that bürgergeld is still combined with sanctions. If not taking up (usual shitty ) work it can be lost, or missing a summoning, etc. Being in that system is thus highly stressful. Those sanctions were supposed to go away, instead they were made harder. Thanks SPD.
It's very funny, because people with the same political opinions as you in my country are absolutely positive that this is the case for my country instead (France).
And in practice they are pretty similar (as are many European systems unsurprisingly, we all draw inspiration on each other) and as someone who knows the French social system fairly well I can assure you that the trope you hear from right wing politicians on TV is nothing but lies.
