WEIMAR TO WHINEMORE:

A rude ’05 awakening for Germans (Carter Dougherty, December 29, 2004, International Herald Tribune)

Hans Schmidt spends a lot of time these days with a yellow paperback book, full of paper clips and dog-eared pages, that helps him grope his way through Germany's labyrinthine system of unemployment benefits. But at the end of the maze, Schmidt knows he will find a lot less money than he once had.

Schmidt, a computer specialist, was recently laid off from a medium-sized company near Frankfurt. His wife, Sabine, has been unemployed for over a year and will now lose her benefits entirely as Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's groundbreaking changes to the country's unemployment regime kick in on Jan. 1.

The changes will more than halve the take-home pay the Schmidt household once enjoyed from a comfortable €2,350 to about €1,050.

"I find all this an absolutely unfair system now," said Schmidt, who concedes he is concealing his real name because he wants to sue to get his job back. "I paid taxes for years to finance social assistance, and now it's gone."

Multiply this example by several million, add in a hefty dose of frustration and resignation, and that about approximates the mood of the German work force this holiday season, the traditional mulled wine and roasted chestnuts aside. On Jan. 1, 4.5 million unemployed Germans - 10.8 percent of the work force - will be wrenched into a new world of dwindling benefits.

"This is the end of the Germany that I grew up with," said Martin Bongards, an unemployed sociologist and activist in the town of Marburg. "This country I knew no longer exists."

What morning in Europe isn't a rude awakening?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 29, 2004 8:02 AM