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Research: Germany is spending less on asylum seekers, expenditure falls again in 2020

-Germany’s expenditure on Asylum seekers continues to decline and this is the fifth year in a row that it has continued to do so, announced the Federal Statistical Office.

-They also added that most payments are made for standard benefits such as living expenses.

Germany again spent less money on supporting asylum seekers last year. As the Federal Statistical Office announced on Wednesday in Wiesbaden, government agencies paid a total of 4.2 billion euros gross for benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act in 2020.

That was 4.7 percent less than in the previous year. The office added that this was a continued decline in spending on asylum seekers’ benefits that has been observed since 2016.

It was reported by WELT that three quarters of the expenses were provided for standard benefits such as; living expenses, 22 percent of the expenditure was for services in special needs such as illness, pregnancy or childbirth.

One-off payments due to the pandemic were not paid up until 2021 and hence not included in the circulation.

The gross expenditure was also offset by income, such as repayments of aid granted and in total, around 141M euros came back to the state in 2020. Research done by statisticians unveiled that the net expenditure amounted to just under 4.1Billion euros.

This is was 5.2 percent less than in the precious year.

In the past there had been debate on the reducing of African asylum seekers salaries (we wrote about it here: Germany, African asylum seekers face reduced salaries ) due to the mentality of ‘collective’ housing and responsibilities but the court ruled that it was unconstitutional.

African asylum seekers continue to face deportation and asylum rejection more, year after year.

READ RELATED ARTICLE; Court rules refugees in Germany not allowed to be sent back to Italy

African asylum seekers in Germany still facing deportation despite COVID-19 pandemic

Source: dpa, Welt