Austria: Unemployed migrant family earning €9,000 a month from Viennese taxpayers sparks outrage

A Syrian migrant family living in Vienna is receiving a net monthly allowance of €9,000, in addition to other benefits and housing assistance.

The couple, who are raising 11 children, receive €6,000 in basic benefits and €3,000 in family support, writes Mandiner, citing data from Kronen Zeitung. These sums represent monetary figures that would be hard to earn on the job market for many Austrians. Further data also revealed that Austria’s capital spent more than €1 billion on basic welfare income last year.

Peter Hacker, councilor of the Social Democratic (SPÖ) city government, called such payments a “marginal phenomenon,” stating that 58.1 percent of families receiving basic income have just one or two children; however, the city still supports three 11-child families and six 10-child families.

The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), which governs at the federal level, wants to put an end to migrants coming to the city to benefit from such high benefits and would thus like Vienna’s social benefits to be aligned with the national average.

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ÖVP says it is untenable for people who have never paid into the common fund and who are not even motivated to look for work to receive benefits, especially as the country is trying to keep its budget under control.

Yet, ÖVP has been in power off and on for decades, and currently, has a chancellor leading the country, leading many critics to note that their claims are mostly hollow.

The Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Austria’s strongest party according to polls, says it is outrageous and a slap in the face for every Austrian to provide €9,000 a month to a Syrian migrant family with no employment.

FPÖ general secretary Michael Schnedlitz criticized the ÖVP in a broadcast, stating the party “rolled out the red carpet for thousands of illegal immigrants that came into country and into our social system.” He said that they made Austria, together with the other parties, the “World Social Office.” Once again, Schnedlitz promoted his party’s demand that social benefits be linked to Austrian citizenship.

Vienna’s FPÖ boss Dominik Nepp said that Vienna’s SPÖ party, which runs the city, would “continue to throw up social asylum seekers’ banknotes for doing nothing.”

His party colleague from Lower Austria, deputy governor Udo Landbauer, described the incredible levels of welfare money flowing to non-working foreigners as a “strike in the face of hard-working people”.

The news also comes as data shows that 72 percent of all welfare fraud that has been discovered in Austria since 2018, has been committed by foreigners.

The government is investigating how to correct the situation that has caused public outrage but says that tying the payment of social assistance to a minimum period of time spent in the country would likely conflict with international law. Changes would also have to be made to various provincial regulations within Austria to create a uniform system across the country.