Families in comparison

Welfare versus work: an upsetting case from Wels

The Upper Austrian family with seven children: Both parents work full-time, yet they have lower incomes than a Syrian family of the same size in Vienna without working.

(Bild: ServusTV, Krone KREATIV)

A family of nine from Upper Austria - both parents work full-time - has a lower income than a family in Vienna living on social welfare. ServusTV has the story.

Based on the debate about a Syrian family with seven children who receive 4600 euros net in Vienna - without working, only through state support - the channel (broadcast 29.8., 21.10) is showing a report on the hotly debated topic of social welfare throughout Austria.

The focus is on an Upper Austrian family whose income does not come close to that of the Syrian family, despite the parents working full-time. The extended family with seven children lives near Wels, father and mother both teach at the Wifi.

The extended family from Upper Austria

(Bild: ServusTV, Krone KREATIV)

Despite the parents working full-time, the family - with between 4,000 and 4,500 euros net per month, twelve times a year, as they work on a fee basis - has less income available each month than if they did "nothing" in Vienna.

In comparison, the family in Vienna receives 4600 euros a month in social benefits 12 times a year:

• The two adults receive 809.09 euros per month.
• Plus a supplement of 51.01 euros each, as minors live in the household.
• There is also 312.08 euros per child - the family has seven children, one of whom is not eligible according to a report in the free newspaper "Heute".
• There is also a rent allowance of 995.46 euros.

"We are not much below that, but we are below it"
Allowances for school trips, bus, train or ORF fees are also only available to welfare recipients. The family says: "There's no way that two people are working and we're actually below the level of Vienna on this income. Not much, but we are below it."

According to the family, they don't feel envious, but they don't think this system is fair: "It shouldn't be taken to mean that we are envious. It would make much more sense to get people into work."

It's not just the Wels family that thinks this: social welfare needs to be reformed, says the ÖVP and looks to social democratic Denmark. The rules for social benefits are much stricter there. 

Survey: Austrians call for stricter welfare rules
ServusTV also commissioned a recent OGM survey on the topic. According to the survey, Austrians are also calling for stricter social welfare rules and a uniform system across the country. 

According to the survey, 71 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents are in favor of the "Upper Austria model" for minimum benefits (including significantly less social assistance, introduction of a German language requirement, capping of social benefits for beneficiaries of subsidiary protection at the level of basic benefits).

75 percent were in favor of a waiting period of several years before receiving the full amount of social benefits. This is a demand that has recently been increasingly voiced in politics - for example by ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer. And - another increasingly popular measure - 80 percent are in favor of benefits in kind instead of cash benefits.