Is this true? current horrible state of swiss social programs.

46 comments

1. Very shocking that the system is built for long term support of those with disabilities, seems to be punishing them

2. Uhhmm… what did you expect? I mean… is this news? Of course you owe them the money you receive.

3. there is no “swiss social security”. This kind of stuff is managed by cantons and it can be very different from one to others.

4. the only thing that is correct is that it is a pain in the ass to get disability support. i know multiple people that had to fight for years to get IV.

   the rest is just some blabbering from an obviously confused and mentally unstable person

5. It depends on the Canton: [https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/unterschiede-zwischen-kantonen-sozialhilfe-muss-nicht-ueberall-zurueckbezahlt-werden#:~:text=Wenn%20eine%20Person%20nach%20dem,30’000%20Franken%20behalten%20darf](https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/unterschiede-zwischen-kantonen-sozialhilfe-muss-nicht-ueberall-zurueckbezahlt-werden#:~:text=Wenn%20eine%20Person%20nach%20dem,30'000%20Franken%20behalten%20darf).

6. Law student here. The first thing our professor said about social security: “social security isn’t charity”.

7. As far as I know, yes that is true. In recent years/decades, social security has also come under increasing pressure from right wing parties, pushing for surveillance of the people in need if social security and for cuts to it after you’ve been on it for over two years (the last thing specifically in my Canton, where that proposal was just accepted in a referendum)

8. This needs background. Not saying the person writing this is wrong or that the system is just/unjust, but I would like to know how and why this person got into this situation. How do you end up on social security for 12 years, without qualifying as disabled, while still feeling this is unjust. What happened before and during those 12 years.

   ​

   This post describes an admittedly unfortunate situation a person ends up in, but it lacks context and background.

9. What’s shoking about it?

   That you have to pay back the support you received? Seems only fair to me, especially since it’s not like you pay interest on the money you owe. It’s literally money you get for free to help you cover a rough patch.

   That getting disability support is hard? Well it should be. The money you receive through that isn’t owed back, so that’s essentially the government providing for you fully. It’s obviously good that a system like thin exists for the people who need it, it’s also obvious that this system needs to be well protected against people taking advantage of it, ie. it must always be very hard to get into.

10. I don’t get why it needs to be paid back. We are already paying for the insurance with our taxes… That’s like paying health insurance and then after you got your operation or treatment they ask you to pay everything back that they paid for you? Then what’s the point of paying the premiums in the first place. Makes not much sense to me, but I guess it’s just another of those swiss things….

11. Disability insurance exists though in Switzerland? It comes out of ones paycheck.

    I would have thought it is clear when you sign up to a Cantonal program the terms of the payment – eg, whether it is a loan or not.

    This sounds like a very extreme case.

12. Yes its à pain in the ass.
    Thus make People in need not willing to s’est help
    And no you dont owe every penny but it can be costly if your situation gens better.
    Its à system once you go in is better to stay…..

13. I mean even if you‘re disabled you can work at a Werkstatt and what she describes as social security is actually being “ausgesteuert”. Like what do you expect?

14. [deleted]

15. I didn’t realize I need to pay it back.. I was on unemployment for about 6 months years ago and haven’t heard anything along those lines. I mean I’ve been paying normal taxes but that’s it. Did I miss something?

16. How did you end up not having your disability approved in 12years? Never heard of that. I can take 3 or so years in worst case. But i never heard of that before?

17. talking about own property when you got 230k from the state. funny.

18. What she didn’t mention is that being on welfare for too long is also one of the very few reasons a foreigner can be deported. Think murder, rape, repeat drug offender and welfare recepient.

    This country hates poor people so fucking much lol.

19. While this sound unfortunate, there is something seriously wrong with 12 years of social security.

20. A few misconceptions here:

    – Sozialhilfe hasn’t Swiss rules per se, not even cantons, every Gemeinde deals with it themselves. There is the SKOS who gives some guidelines but not everyone works with them.

    – there are many differences about paying it back, in some places you have to pay back everything, in some places only if you inherit or win the lottery (which is fair, if you think about it) and of course you can’t inherit money and still stay on Sozialhilfe

    – if you are on Sozialhilfe while waiting for IV, the idea is basically that the Sozialhile pays for the IV while they decide, so if IV decides you’ll get money for the past 6 years you’ve been sick, the IV pays the Sozialhilfe their part back for this time – so I don’t know, what OP is on about in this part

    – social integration through work is a difficult topic, that goes far down the core principles of being Swiss and can’t be easily answered, but there are definetly issues in this area, but again it depends on your Gemeinde. Zürich doesn’t know this obligation anymore for example (or only for very few people)

    – no, you can’t earn money really on Sozialhilfe, since the logic is, it helps you reach a certain minimum, not that it “provides” you the minimum – I don’t have a strong opinion about this, it’s just the way it is

    – same goes for property and selling – If you can make money or make money, congratulation you lowered what the state has to pay you

    – marriage: yes, marriage indeed means sharing debt and if you are poor living with a rich partner for quite some time – the state won’t pay either, which is fair in most cases but can differ

    – complexity: Sozialhilfe is an extremly complex bundle of system that changes constantly. There isn’t a lot of rules that can be agreed on a swiss level, not even what even counts as Sozialhilfe and what not, so these angry rants can’t ever be the “norm” because there is no norm

    – security: one detail that gets overlooked often, yeah the money is low and the rules are strict, but you’re pretty secure. Your rent and health insurance is paid,doctor apointements, medication, dentist, glasses and other stuff if the situation requires it can be paid for as well.

21. This sounds like a terribly sorry and unfortunate situation to be in. I have the greatest sympaties to people caught in the trappings of bureaucracies, they an have the most frustrating way of holding people hostage in catch-22’s and absolutely mentally draining procedures.

    Still, if we are to understand this text, theres a lot which is just… missing. In fact its an utter non sequitur, with has all the markings of mad incoherent rambling. I don’t at all follow the logic here.

    How do you just “end up” on social security for 12 years?

    Why would a trade learned through an apprenticeship be the only way out of social security, and not just any normal job?

    If are you attested to be sick by a doctor, and thus sick, why would you still be able to complete an apprenticeship?

    If you are fighting to get on disability insurance, but still feel you can complete an apprenticeship, would this not imply that you are in fact not disabled?

    To me it seems quite fair that if you are able to work, you should absolutely not be on either social security or disability. And yeah, the state will of course employ your labour, thats a staple feature of social security systems across the western world.

    Also, whats this thing about it being “menial” tasks suddenly a bad thing? Don’t look down on manual labour. Lots of people get up every day and do honest manual work, in the end these jobs keep the society running.

22. [deleted]

23. Every time there is a post that is remotely critical about any Swiss system, the number of peeps that get butt hurt go 📈. Sometimes I think, if the generation that build this country from the ashes (obviously not this generation 😆) would be alive, would they be this arrogant and against change? After all they made most of the change that is benefiting this generation and the ones before. If Switzerland ever go down, it will because of this “we are perfect” arrogance that robes people of off sympathy to others less fortunate.

24. It’s quite funny that people are defending the state than the person writing all these. You worry this will shed a bad light on Switzerland? I got news for you, the world doesn’t respect Switzerland in the least. As someone who was born here and lived in different countries around the world, I often use my second citizenship.

    We’re talking about a country that put the economy over people’s lives during a pandemic. When other countries were enforcing measures, we were asking people politely to wear a mask.

    I am pretty sure this is 99% accurate. This country, as most of its citizens, has no regard for the underprivileged or suffering. We live in our little bubble of ignorance.

    Switzerland is no worse than say USA. That prays on the weak with stuff like day loans etc. Our society and politicians are very similar.

    You can hide behind direct democracy but doesn’t change the fact that there are traps like those mentioned by the OP that only lead to legalized slavery. Go Google what applies in Germany for these kinds of cases.

    But I mean I assume this is why Switzerland will never have something like the NHS. Cause for most Swiss it’s me >>>>>>> all.

25. Yes, it is true, unfortunately.

    Waiting for the IV for more than 3 years now to make up their minds… struggling not to get into “Sozialhilfe”, getting sicker in the process.

26. But in that case, how would your uncle ever pay it back anyway? If he has no assets and is about to retire.

27. cnat di apprenticeship? wtf is that person on drugs we get encuraged to do apprenticeships wtf did that person smoke

28. >Copy pasted from a swiss twitter user who apparently has a disability that prevents them from working

    This is kind of a misleading intro – most of the post is about “Social benefit” (Sozialhilfe / Führsorge) payments that have nothing to do with disability or the disability insurance.

    ​

    >“the utter disbelief in the faces of people when i tell them that, when you get social security in switzerland, YOU OWE EVERY PENNY YOU EVER RECEIVE! after having been on social security for the last 12 years, i owe over 230k $ to the swiss state, with all the consequences that come with it. i’m not allowed to leave the country for more than 3 consecutive weeks, every penny i receive on my bank account (that is monitored regularly) is counted as income (so f.e. no ebay sales of old stuff, REMOVING MY RIGHT TO DECIDE OVER MY OWN PROPERTY),

    What OP is talking about here, is that all his living expenses are payed with taxpayer money.

    Again, this has nothing to do with the different “risks” that are handled true an insurance in Switzerland. Those risks are “Health, Accident, Maternity & Paternity, Military, Unemployment, Disability and Old age (including death).

    If OP is receiving Social benefits that means she doesn’t qualify for any of the insurance claims, otherwise that would always be payed true the insurance, the state only pays social benefits if no other possible income are available. The social benefits is payed directly out of taxes.

    Now it is technically true that OP owes the money she got from the state, the only way she would have to pay this back is if she suddenly comes into a lot of money, by winning the lottery or inheritance. However, it is correct that any additional income will firstly be used to reduce the part that the state is paying and not be extra cash on top of the tax money she receives. If Op would start working again, she would usually not be forced to pay back the money unless she starting a job with a lot of disposable income. What that limit is varies from canton to canton.

    ​

    >i’m prohibited from entering into an apprenticeship to learn a trade that might get me out of social security,

    This claim seems off, there must be more to this that’s not in the post, since the goal of social security always is to get people out of social security.

    ​

    >if i wasn’t attested to be to sick to work by my doctor i would be forced into “2nd labour market programs” where you do menial tasks either at a government controlled workshop or at normal free market companies that profit from your work, which can be up to a normal 100% work week, and all you get from it is 100$ more PER MONTH!

    These programs are for people who can’t find work in years, but aren’t considered to have a disability, as to not have them do nothing all the time. The point in working for a real company for “Free” as OP puts it is that this is a chance to get work experience. Moreover, for a company to see how you are working, in the hopes that this might lead to a real employment, so that companies might be considering someone who has not held a job in 12 years to ever be a viable candidate for a job, which most companies would not do unless you have incentives like this.

    ​

    >owing money to social services also means any unusual gains, f.e. from inhereting from a dead relative, is pretty much fully confiscated to go towards what you owe, or they can force you to leave social security and live on the inherited money, but only in a way that limits your monthly spending to no more than 2 times of what your monthly social security was. once the inheritance is spent this way you have to re-apply for social security.

    The national Limit you can keep while owning money is 30’000.- for a single person, anything above that will be going to paying back your debt, that is correct.

    ​

    >another “fun” fact about this system of a debt, a significant amount of people on social security are awaiting a decision on their claim for disability support or are on their 1st, 2nd or 3rd objection to a negative decision by the notoriously biased “disability insurance”, a government body originally designed to support those to sick, disabled or broken to work, but that has been under relentless attack by (far) right poltical forces that have strongly defunded the org.

    What OP is leaving out here, is that if the disability insurance approves your claim, the payments will be made retroactively from the time you applied and cover anything you got from Social benefits which in this case just stepped in to get you true the time until the insurance claims have been validated. Now in OP’s case, obviously this is something that occurred while either she was already receiving social benefits or she was declined by the insurance. The insurance will not cover anything prior to the claim. The defunding part is just false. The background checks have been intensified and the incentive to keep people in the work base if possible has been raised. Now there are many things that can bee improved, but saying it was defunded is just false.

    ​

    >i myself have been fighting for more than 6 years by now to get on disability, at this point it has again been more than 2 years since my last objection, without as much as a word from the org.

    I obviously don’t know OP’s case and can’t say if the decision was correct or not, but any objection to a decision goes to court immediately, hence to long waiting period. this is not something the insurance office will decided (this is special for disability insurance) – all other insurances will reply to objection firstly and only after the first appeal you can go to court.

    ​

    >oh, and how about this; should anyone ever decide they’d want to marry someone on social security, they’d instantly become co-responsible for paying back their debt, and the person on socialv security will lose 40-100% of social security support.

    They instantly become responsible for the living expenses, since married couples have a responsibility for each other by law in Switzerland. They are not responsible for your debt pre marriage, that’s just false again.

    You can’t claim tax payer money for social support while being married to someone who could cover those cost, otherwise any unemployed spouse could claim social benefits.

    ​

    >the later isn’t even restricted to marriage; anyone living with a person on ss (social security) will lead to that person losing 40-50% of their monthly ss payout, doesn’t matter if the person they live with is family, a romantic partner, or simply a roommate in a shared living accommodations situation. living with (and caring for) my 93yr old grandmother means i get about half of my monthly ss deducted, putting a massive strain on our already limited budget for food, clothes, medical expenses not covered by insurance, all that fun stuff. end of month we often live on potatoes/noodles.

    ​

    The 40-50% claim is just taken out of thin air. In reality, it varies depending on many factors, but yes sharing housing will lead to cut of cost, as it is expected that some of the cost are being shared. I’m not saying this is always a reasonable thing. But social security can’t really come to your apartment and see if you guys are fucking or just sharing a flat.. Yes even 93 can technically still fuck.

    ​

    >tl;dr swiss social security is far from the great humanitarian project i often hear it described as; much more, it is a scheme that entraps the poorest of the poor in life-long debt and removes a great amount of personal freedoms people take for granted in western democracies.”

    Nobody who has any idea would call the social benefits system in switzerland a “Great humanitarian project” – if that was your point, you could have just left it at a one liner, and everybody would have agreed.

    Edit: spelling error

29. Being a social worker and having worked in a Sozialhilfebehörde in the past:

    >Of course your bank accounts are monitored. How is the Sozialhilfebehörde supposed to know, if you are in need? Most money that goes to your account is indeed counted as income. If it isn’t you have to bring some form of receipt. (E.g. insurance money for a stolen bike, IF you buy a new bike with that money does not necessary count as income)

    >Being prohibited from an apprenticeship is not true in itself. If you are 25 or younger and don’t have an Erstausbildung you can be supported via welfare, if you don’t qualify for Stipendien oder Kinderrente/EL. You are not “in need” for studying at FH/University, if you go to a private school, or if it is the 2nd Ausbildung. Certain cantons also have programs for people 25+ that don’t have an Erstausbildung, who are being supported via welfare.

    >You are expected to stay in your Wohnsitzgemeinde while you recieve Welfare, because it is tied to your zivilrechtlicher wohnsitz and that you need to be either looking for a job or are in an integration program. If you are not, your are supposed to stay in your wohnsitzgeminede because people who work can’t just go around not being at home/work whenever they want and your are not supposed to have those “advantages” AND your are not supposed to have money for travelling. Your are allowed four weeks of not being in switzerland/at home.

    >Usually a normal roommate (who you are not related to in the vertical line like grandparents, parents, children) doesn’t have to support a Sozialhilfebezüger, thats flat out wrong. Living with a roommate reduces the cost of living. Therefore your recieve less money for rent and Grundbedarf.

    >Of course you are expected to live off your inheritance or winnings, if you get enough to not be “in need” anymore. Everyone is expected to finance themselves to the best of their ability. An Inheritance or lotterywinnings are way of self sufficinacy.

    >Integration into the Arbeitsmarkt is part of every Sozialhilfebezug, to the best of your abilities. It is harm reduction and part of the Sozialhilfegesetz.

    >Marrying someone with welfare debt doesn’t lead to you being responsible for their debt and vice versa. Neither “normal” debt nor welfare debt. If you marry them while still being dependent on welfare, you will become a “Unit”. Spouses are obligated to support each other financially in marriage and the spouse that earns money is obligated to use some of that money to support you. After you are married, the debt that you accumulate together belongs to both spouses.

    >The problem with disability(IV) is true though. The political push and the defunding of IV has lead to many people recieiving Sozialhilfe instead of IV, even though the can’t work in the 1st Arbeitsmarkt or even in the 2nd.

    The biggest problems I see are, that the people who work there don’t have enough understanding of the local Sozialhilfegesetz and therefore interpret it wrong. This leads to arbitrary decisions for funding that aren’t justifiable legally. When this happens, clients don’t have the tools or knowledge on how to come to their rights which leads to dissatisfaction on both sides.

    It is true that the right wing push to reduce welfare leads to more monitoring, and more inhumane treatment of clients. Welfare practices should be the same federally and without a general suspicion of fraud. Clients should be clearly informed of their rights and there should be more organisations like UFS (Unabhängige Fachstelle für Sozialhilfe) to help, if clients are being treated arbitrarly.

30. I can only speak to social security in the canton I know the regulations about, which is Zurich. In general terms, social security is a loan, the RAV (unemployment) is a limited income to sustain you while you search for a job and disability sustains you partially or fully in the case of disability (with varying degrees). In Zurich, you pay back the social security if you received inheritance or win the lottery or receive a monetary gift, own property of have assets that are not immediately accessible, will receive other income streams from insurances (disability and such) in the future, if you lied about needing social security. There are many restrictions and rules you have to follow, in order to benefit from social security (like informing the government if you want to leave the country and limits on how long you are allowed to leave). That said, Zurich has one of the most “helpful” cantonal regulations for social security in Switzerland, so there are varying degrees of restrictions and conditions associated with social security. That said, I don’t understand how this person accumulated 230’000 CHF of social security debt over 12 years because that means this person would have received 19’999 CHF per month to cover living costs, housing, medical bills and any other situational costs (which seems like an implausibly high sum for 1-2 people). I think there is some context missing from the post.

    [source](https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/sd/de/index/unterstuetzung/finanz/wirtschaftliche_hilfe/faq-sozialhilfe.html)

31. [deleted]

32. >Is this true?

    Under some circumstances probably. But there’s a lot not mentioned.

    To be more specific:

    – Yes, social welfare (the thing you receive if all other social insurances fail you respectively you don’t have them) has – *in theory* – to be paid back in most cantons.

    *However* there are a lot of “exceptions” that can vary quite a bit depending on the canton. A lot of cantons use the recommendations of the “SKOS”. Those recommendations are actually quite “generous” (if we want to use that term). Most notably they recommend that a former welfare recepient that gets an income from a job normally doesn’t have to pay back welfare with his income. *So money that somebody gets from his own work normally is “safe”.*

    It’s different if a (former) social welfare recipient inherits a lot of money. In that case, the inheritance is normally indeed used to settle the social welfare debt. (The SKOS however recommends to only “seize” the part of the inheritance that exceeds 30’000 .- ; so they don’t take it to the last penny.)

    ​

    – It’s true that the invalidity insurance has quite some problems. A bit less then 20 years ago there was a massive political campaign by the right wing to dismantle that insurance. So they became quite a bit more reluctant when it comes to accepting somebody as invalid. There is also the problem that the medical evaluation is often done by some “business” that specifically caters to the invalidity insurance. So they make sure to refuse applicants because they guess the higher their refusal quote is, the higher the chance that they get more business from the insurance.

    However you certainly don’t wait 12 years for a decision. Afaik normally it should happen within 2 years. I figure in the case from the Twitter thread the decision from the insurance came long ago and the person in question is fighting the decision in court through every instance.

33. Honestly people will tell you that tôt depends on the commune but if we are being honest we can agree that Swiss social services in general (as well as healthcare and access to education) are far worse than our European neighbours. We probably are the European’s continent most liberal country in the economic sense.

    Don’t misunderstand me ; life is great here but you have to work and make good money. If you live on the margins of Swiss society you will get fucked undoubtably.

34. Do you see many handicapped people in Switzerland? I seldom do. Switzerland is really nice when you have a good job, good money and are sporty. It becomes quickly a shitshow of individualism and walls of silence / administrative roadblocks / conflicts of interest (medical insurance’s own doctor having the last word).

35. So this person waited 6 years before trying to claim disability insurance and expect to pay nothing back ?

    This person want to do an apprenticeship but is somehow incapable of working ?

    Maybe she claim to be mentally disabled but isn’t considering it has been rejected 3 times ?

    After looking at her twitter profile I have no doubt she is mentally disabled tho

36. Ahhhhhh the sweet sweet smell of turbo capitalism

37. I work at the social security in switzerland.

    1. yes in some places the money you receive is a debt BUT you only have to pay it if you can afford to do so. A calcul is made in those situation and he will live with he’s own money
    2. No they don’t remove you the right to decied over hes own property. They make sure you don’t own a lot of money worth of house. The social security is the bare minimum it means if you can sell something to not need the social security you will have to.
    3. The meaning of the social is too help you live till you can work again to pay your own bills. So yes it’s pure logic that you have to work even if it’s for some governemental things. You should too keep in mind that when you accepted the social you signed a paper that tells you all that. It’s not a confederational gift, it is here to help you and if you want to have this money for ever without doing anything you are a thief (not saying you want)
    4. the disability insurance is not the same as the social and must be put appart. We can’t change it or make it better at the social. But yeah the time you have to receive a decision is horribly long and often i judge the response unfair. But if you get out of the social because of it you won’t have to pay anything cause you won’t have enough money too.
    5. This will be my last point and I’m sorry if it is a bit offensive. Its about this part:”tl;dr swiss social security is far from the great humanitarian project i often hear it described as; much more, it is a scheme that entraps the poorest of the poor in life-long debt and removes a great amount of personal freedoms people take for granted in western democracies.”

    A scheme that entraps the poorest ? Are you serious !? Without it you won’t even have the money to eat. You seems to think that you will live rent free on a yacht and that’s all. Are you even aware that this don’t exist everywhere and on another country you’ll just have died from hunger ??

    ​

    I’m not saying that’s your case but, as a person who work in it I’m really sad to see all the people who think that they deserve more or that it is unfair. Dude I work 42 hours per weeks and you just complain that without working all your bills are paid and you have the money to eat and some even take vacations. I don’t take vacations cause I can’t afford it. Plus I get insulted and assaulted by those people.

    It’s a chance to have it not a gift.

    The social security is the bare minimum, it’s the last thing that maintain you alive and you should remember it.

38. Just because nobody mentioned it yet… wouldn’t basic income solve a lot of this?

39. “Ehh häsch mir en Stutz”

40. I can’t really comment on OP, but I can confirm that social security can be a massive pain in the behind. Sometimes probably justified, but sometimes definitely not.

    During a point in my life I had problems finding a job. Not because I haven’t tried what I could, but I just wasn’t lucky. So eventually, I didn’t get unemployment insurance anymore. However, I have decided to not go to social security. Instead, I have used up ALL of my savings. From what I remember, it took me like another two years to use it all up. Not because it was a huge amount, but because I generally don’t spend much. I can get by with less than 2k a month. So all my savings from the money I’ve earned while working, and all the savings from birthday and christmas money that I got as a kid and that I hadn’t ever touched before that point, with the former making up the bigger part of it. All gone. Only then have I decided to go apply for social security.

    When I’ve applied, they have told me that I will be expected to work for the “Bauamt” for a month (for free of course), just so they know I actually am capable of having a daily schedule and really show interest in improving my situation. I have informed them then that I’ll of course do so, but that I can’t in a certain timeperiod of three weeks. I’ll happily do so before or after, or with the time being split. The reason being that my girlfriend (now wife) from the USA was visiting, being in Switzerland and Europe in general for the very first time. This had been planned long before I had no choice anymore but to apply for social security. They have told me they don’t know yet when I’ll have to work for them and that we’ll see once it happens.

    As soon as I had applied, I was told that the rent for my appartment is too high and that I need to find a cheaper one. However, my rent was already as cheap as it could be; there simply was no cheaper option. They’ve said it exceeds the amount of money that’s meant for rent, though; but I said that’s fine and I’ll basically just use some of the part that’s meant for social spendings (e.g. going out and stuff) for that, since I’m not someone who actually goes out a lot. They’ve said I can’t do that and I need to try and find something cheaper (if needed, in another municipality). They have also said I should consider moving back in with my parents. I was already over 30 years old at the time, and my parents didn’t have room for me anymore.

    Now, eventually I got the letter telling me when I’m supposed to work for them. Of course it would have started during the second of the three weeks my gf was visiting. So I’ve immediately called them and explained the situation. I was told that I need to send a written appeal, but that it’s not guaranteed that they will look at it in time – that comittee who decides that stuff only meets twice a month, and since it was December and they’ve already met once, they might not meet a second time. However, I’ve still tried. I have explained the situation, and how this was long planned, how I’ll gladly work for them before or afterwards. And how it would be stupid for my gf to sit home alone all day after having spent the money for the flights and stuff and without even knowing any German yet.

    I was lucky and they had another meeting. However, they have denied my request, with the reasoning being that other people live together and go to work as well. It’s like for f*ck’s sake; she’s visiting! We’re not living together! Ugh. -_-

    Then I was lucky another time. I had actually found a job! The contract was signed, and I was going to start there right after my girlfriend left, which would have been halfway through the time I was supposed to work for the municipality. With that, I assumed the problem solved itself. However… the municipality felt otherwise. They wanted me to go work for them for those two weeks before my new job starts. Because clearly, having a signed work contract doesn’t prove that I’m trying to improve my situation…

    At this point, I have tried to contact the social security people on the cantonal level. Supposedly, they are meant to tell you about laws and regulations and stuff; especially when you feel that something’s off. However, they basically told me to eff myself and that they are not interfering with the municipality’s decisions on anything (even though I just wanted to know about the legal situation). They didn’t even want to listen to what I’ve had to say.

    So, I’ve told the municipality I’m not coming in. After all, I HAVE a signed work contract, right?… The first two days I was supposed to go and work for them, the lady from social security called me early morning, asking why I didn’t show up. On the third day, I’ve had a multiple page long letter in my mailbox, from the committee that supposedly only meets twice a month. It explained in detail how I did not show any interest in improving my situation whatsoever, and that I only applied to social security because I’ve wanted to enrich myself. They have thus decided to not only cut me off from any financial support immediately, but that I’ve also had to pay back the money I had received so far ASAP (within a week or two).

    Needless to say, their claims were extremely absurd and very obviously complete and utter lies. Also, as far as I’m aware, the most they could have done would have been to (temporarily) reduce the amount of money I get; especially as a first time “offender”. They absolutely did not have any right to cut me off completely. And then even demand money back. Like, from what was I supposed to pay that back at this moment? There’s a reason why I’ve applied for social security… -_-

    So yeah. Obviously, I wouldn’t have been able to afford a lawyer for a lawsuit, so they got away with it.

    During that time (or shortly after), there was a case in the news about this imam who was preaching hate in Switzerland, and how much money he had gotten from social security during those 20 years or so I believe. When I’ve calculated what that’s per month, it was over 4k a month. 4k a month. While preaching hate and traveling abroad frequently. In the meanwhile, I got not even half of that and was being treated that way… I must have been doing something wrong. Maybe preaching hate instead of trying to improve my situation would have been the better choice. Like, wtf.

    Anyway, that’s my story.

41. I was on benefits for a year, they spent many thousands to help me get back to work. I did get a well paid job at the end but was never asked to pay anything back. I now live abroad and travel to Switzerland regularly to see my family. Never had a problem.

42. Well, when my wife got divorced from her ex, the cantonal government decided that her income was low enough that she qualified to have the fees “waived”, with the condition that if she ever had sufficient income, she was expected to pay it back. Fast forward a few years later, we got married, and guess what, “she” had enough income to pay it back, even though she was not employed at the time.

    TL;DR – I can’t tell you if the tweet is true, but it is not a “pant-on-fire” lie.

43. Welfare in Switzerland is really bad. It kills people from the inside and stigmatizes them. It is actually the biggest fear I have in life right now because even though I have a university degree and some work experience, I always know that being on welfare is just a few steps away for me.

    My message to all the people out there who have to live on welfare: I have a huge amount of respect for you and I understand your difficult situation. Do not fear and don’t be too desperate, things will always work out one way or another. I also hope that your life will improve one way or the other in the near future.

44. All i know is that switzerland spends about 32% of their money in soziale wohlfahrt (24 milliarden). It just cant be more than that. And i dont think the people spending it are dumb.

45. being poor is expensive here

46. They take your taxes willingly…yes, yes…but will fuck you over for misspelling a word (exaggeration)…the swiss core is as rotten as any other country