Labor Minister and Social Democratic Party (SPD) co-leader Bärbel Bas (SPD) says nobody is immigrating to Germany to take advantage of its social welfare system. However, she has received substantial pushback directed at her claim.
Bas’ comment came during a session of the Bundestag, when AfD MP René Springer asked Bas why she wasn’t cutting spending on immigration due to the current budget crisis, given the clear burden it is putting on social welfare, a situation that is making German taxpayers increasingly angry.
“Immigration into the welfare state threatens social cohesion! The fact is: More and more immigrants are pushing into our social welfare system – and are bringing the system to its limits and to the brink of collapse,” CSU Member of Parliament Stephan Mayer told Bild on Tuesday, as quoted by Junge Freiheit.
Bas, in return, has called this notion a lie from “right-wing extremists.”
Her goal, like many proponents of mass immigration is to link it to eliminating Germany’s skilled worker shortage.
“We have a skilled worker shortage in this country, which many companies are addressing by saying, ‘We need everyone who is here in the country and can work.'”
Mayer, and many others before him, shot her down.
“Every statistic refutes her. The immigration into Germany’s social systems is verifiably documented and one of the main reasons why the Federal Republic is heading toward state bankruptcy,” Springer posted on X last week.
“There is less and less money for those in need because the wrong people, who have never paid into the system and never will, are being supported by us,” he told Bild.
Remix News has reported extensively on migrant abuse of the German welfare system. In November 2024, data from the federal government revealed that 64 percent of those receiving benefits have a migration background, despite making up a much smaller share of the overall German population. The cost of providing this social welfare rose to €12.2 billion the previous year, but in total, Germany spent nearly €50 billion on immigrants and protecting its border in 2023.
And yet, in August 2025, Germany’s Federal Employment Agency is actively promoting the country’s “citizen’s benefit” (Bürgergeld) to young migrants, with one critic noting: “Germany is so generous that it not only explains to immigrants from abroad how to get a job, but also how to make ends meet in Germany without one.”
That same month, two SPD chiefs in the German state of Thuringia broke with their party, calling for most non-EU migrants — including asylum seekers and recognized refugees — to receive social benefits only as interest-free loans, repayable once they find work, in an effort to break reliance on the state.
Currently, there is very little incentive for many to find work. And even those under deportation orders are being supported at taxpayer’s expense. And this is, of course, ignoring the other issue with massive crime from the migrant community.
Bas, however, has, in turn, said Springer is simply ignorant of the facts.
“You’ve probably never heard of it, because you’re probably not out and about in the country, visiting companies,” she told him.
Alice Weidel, the AfD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, reacted to this with her own input:
“The SPD’s denial of reality is symptomatic of the federal government’s inability to act—a government that doesn’t want to change a thing. A political turnaround is only possible with the AfD!” she wrote on X.
According to Günter Krings (CDU), deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, “there are too many people who come to us from other EU countries and only work a few hours a week, receiving social assistance for the rest of their time,” the MP told Bild, noting that the German social system is “a magnet for many EU foreigners.”
Former Bundestag member Joe Weingarten (SPD) described Bas’s statement as “a completely unrealistic assessment.” He added that she “is largely alone in this view, even within the SPD.” Weingarten also told The Pioneer, “Any responsible local politician could provide her with enough examples from their own city to prove the opposite.”