Improving Hartz IV after the Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court
In 2005, the assistance for the long-term unemployed in Germany was restructured by the so-called „Hartz IV reform“. An important part of the reform was to replace the former different administrations by a single institution. However, in December 2007, the Federal Constitutional Court decided that the new institution is not consistent with the constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany. Thus, a reform of the institution or a change of the constitutional law is necessary. Different reform ideas have been proposed. However, all of them only solve the juristic problem. Not one single reform tries to improve the system. Therefore, the article introduces a new concept of incentive ethics. It shows how the dependency on benefits can be left out by allocating so-called moral goods to the long-term unemployed. A first empirical result supports the concept. Pilot projects should be conducted to get more valid results.