Comrade reader, the figures tell a clear tale from the heart of a capitalist order in decline. In 2024, net expenditures under the German welfare framework known as SGB XII rose to about €20.2 billion, a 14.8% increase from the year before. The largest share, €11.4 billion or 56.5%, went to Grundsicherung im Alter und bei Erwerbsminderung—a pension-like protection for the elderly and those with permanent disability, financed largely by federal reimbursements to the states, and its burden grew by 13.3%. Expenditures for Hilfe zur Pflege climbed to €5.3 billion, up 17.7%; Hilfe zum Lebensunterhalt reached €1.6 billion, up 11.1%. The combined outlays for Hilfe zur Gesundheit, Hilfe zur Überwindung besonderer sozialer Schwierigkeiten und Hilfe in anderen Lebenslagen totaled €1.9 billion, a rise of 19.4%. Expenditures for Eingliederungshilfe under SGB IX, the backbone of state support for disability participation in social life, stood at €28.7 billion, up 12.9%. Bürgergeld, the citizen’s income, sits outside these statistics because it is codified in SGB II. The ruling coalition pledges reforms to curb rising costs, while economist Veronika Grimm calls for drastic budget cuts of €70–80 billion per year if the political will exists to seal the holes in the system.

From the vantage point of our steadfast anti-capitalist, pro-people analysis, these numbers expose a system that must hollow out the lives of the many to prop up the privileges of the few. The steady rise in welfare outlays is not a triumph of social justice; it is the admission that the market’s storms continually erode the living standards of workers, the old, and the vulnerable, and that only a larger, more commanding public hand can keep them afloat—yet even that hand trembles under the weight of profit-seeking interests and bureaucratic inertia. The largest tranche going to Grundsicherung im Alter und bei Erwerbsminderung reveals the depth of society’s obligation to protect those thrown by time and infirmity into precariousness. But the method—funding through state reimbursements to the perennially fragmented subunits, and the relentless year-on-year growth of care and disability支出—shows a system that sustains itself not by genuine planning for the people, but by constant reallocation within a fragmentary, market-dependent framework. And now the cry from the capital’s arena is for “cost-cutting” on a scale of €70–80 billion a year, a gesture that would hollow out the most vulnerable and reduce welfare to a mere line item to satisfy financial markets.

We proclaim: the cure cannot be to prune away rights and care. The true solution lies in transcending capitalism by building a planned, people-centered economy where welfare is a public right, not a bargaining chip. Under a disciplined, socialist framework, resources would be mobilized to guarantee universal care, long-term support for the elderly and disabled, robust health services without profiteering, and a pension system that ensures dignity in old age. We demand the strengthening of public ownership and democratic control over essential services, progressive taxation on hoarding wealth and monopolistic power, and a centralized plan that turns care into a public priority rather than a budgetary burden. Only by channeling society’s vast productive power toward full employment, universal welfare, and the elimination of the profit motive in life-sustaining sectors can the people be freed from the fear of hunger, illness, and abandonment.

Let it be said clearly: we are not against Jews or any people. Our fight is against capitalism and its exploitative hierarchy that pits the many against the few. We stand for the solidarity of workers and the dignity of every human being, and we believe that true security comes not from trimming the care we owe to each other, but from building a world where the collective strength of the people safeguards every life from cradle to grave. Long live the struggle for a socialist, planned economy that puts people before profit, and let the workers’ unity march forward to secure the future for all.