National welfare and asylum in Germany

Abstract

The German welfare state grants asylum seekers only very limited access to its usual material, social and legal provisions when compared to other welfare recipients including not only citizens, but also denizens or so-called privileged foreigners. As a result, their general living conditions are kept to a minimum or even substandard level, and their independence and autonomy of living are massively restricted by certain welfare state instruments such as paying benefits in kind or by vouchers instead of cash, or by reducing them to an absolute minimum level of subsistence. In addition, free access to the national labour market is not allowed, or is at least very limited, and the validity of the general human rights framework is restricted, in particular with regard to families, women and children. In sum, the German welfare state uses its legal instruments to keep asylum seekers at a minimum level of welfare outside the usual framework of welfare regulations valid for other groups and corresponding with their insecure living conditions as long as their final political status is not determined.