Today’s big topic: Minister on new help for cash-benefit recipients: It must not become a pretext
Minister of Employment and Equality Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen (S) is once again in charge of her own much-criticized cash-benefit reform.
What’s happening?
Criticism rained down on Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen (Socialdemokratiet, S) when, as Minister of Employment in 2023, she was behind the controversial cash-benefit reform.
The aim of the reform was to simplify the rules and get more people into work, but according to experts, municipalities and social organizations, it also risks pushing some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens into homelessness.
After nearly a year as Minister of Tax, Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen is now back as Minister of Employment and, among her first tasks, she must implement the government platform’s promises to cash-benefit recipients.
Enhedslisten (Ø) has cheered for the coming financial lifeline for citizens hit by the reform, and the party sees it as one of its biggest wins in the negotiations.
The Minister of Employment makes clear, however, that the reform’s core ideas, regardless of the coming measures, remain in force, including the current three benefit levels: the minimum rate of 7,095 kroner a month, the base rate of 7,529 kroner and the higher rate for providers of 13,060 kroner.
Why it matters!
The government platform calls for significant adjustments to the cash benefits rules. Under the reform, municipalities lost the ability to grant so-called special support for high housing costs – something they had previously spent more than 200 million kroner a year on. But now the S-SF-M-R government is committing to »give municipalities better opportunities to provide financial help for, among other things, housing costs«, as the government platform puts it.
Enhedslisten hopes that implementing the government platform will mean municipalities regain the same ability as before to help financially strained citizens at risk of homelessness. The Minister of Employment will not say how much money she believes municipalities should receive, but says the 2023 reform’s balances must be preserved.
The government must negotiate with Enhedslisten over how to implement the government platform’s promises and intentions. But the area is also governed by a formal political agreement, so Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen stresses that the agreement parties –Venstre (V) and Konservative Folkeparti (K) – must also be involved in any changes.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Critically acclaimed, album-promoting Danish band replaces American rapper
With less than three weeks to go before Roskilde Festival’s music program roars to life, organizers have had to find two replacements. The American rapper Bia and the British rapper Jim Legxacy have canceled their respective shows at this year’s Roskilde Festival. According to the festival, the cancellations are due to »unforeseen circumstances«. Bia will be replaced by the Danish post-punk band Iceage, which will play the Eos stage on Wednesday, July 1, at 5 p.m. Jim Legxacy will be replaced by the Australian-Ghanaian rapper Genesis Owusu, who will perform on the Lagune stage on Friday, July 3, at 8 p.m., Roskilde Festival said on its official website.
–New rules: Delayed air passengers get a better deal
Work on new rules for compensation for delayed air passengers began more than a decade ago. On Friday evening, the new rules were finalized. At a basic level, air travelers will still be entitled to compensation if they are delayed by more than three hours. There are exceptions, however. If, for example, weather or an unlawful strike has delayed the flight by more than three hours, it is not the airline’s responsibility that the flight is late, and there is therefore no right to compensation. Compensation rates will also remain at the current level of 250, 400, or 600 euros, depending on how long the flight is.
Requirements for airlines to inform delayed passengers will be tightened. Passengers delayed by more than three hours must receive a message, for example, by text or email, no later than 96 hours after the flight, explaining their rights and how to apply for compensation. And if compensation is due, it must be paid within 30 days of the claim being filed.
– Danish Chamber of Commerce offers Ukraine its experience from rebuilding Børsen
The Danish Chamber of Commerce says it is ready to help with the reconstruction of the Pechersk Lavra monastery in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. The business organization said so in a press release after the monastery was hit by a Russian airstrike overnight into Monday and then caught fire. Among other things, the Danish Chamber of Commerce will offer the expertise it has gained from rebuilding Børsen, which burned on April 16, 2024.
Talk of town: From cozy chaos to a performance project: The family is no longer the same
In DR’s controversial documentary series 'Tingbjerg-eksperimentet', the family becomes not just a home but also a tool of housing policy. The series reveals how difficult it is to reconcile ideals of community with the desire for security, status, and social mobility.
Families used to be a source of warmth emitting from the television. From the 1970s well into the 1990s, millions of viewers sat and peered into living rooms that looked like their own.
There was a couch in the middle of the room, a front door off to the left, and a staircase along the side. We watched families who argued, made mistakes, and ran late, but who almost always found their way back to one another before the closing credits. Today, the family is still television’s institution of choice, but no longer the place where problems get solved.
On the contrary, the family has become the place where both intimate troubles and collective ones are made visible. You can clearly feel that in the current DR documentary series ’Tingbjerg-eksperimentet’. Here, a number of well-resourced families move into newly built townhouses in Tingbjerg, a neighborhood in the outskirts of Copenhagen, as part of a broader housing-policy vision.
The idea seems to be that the nuclear family still possesses a special power to change society. The family serves as a social tool, as a role model, and as a solution. If you want to see another, more conflict-ridden, representation of the modern family, turn on ’Succession’.
In one of the series’ most uncomfortable moments, the Roy family sits together on a yacht in the Mediterranean. The sun is shining. The sea is glittering. They are billionaires surrounded by luxury, and they have gathered to decide who must be sacrificed to save the family business.
It’s hard to imagine a scene farther from the sitcom families that once brought us together in front of the television. Shows like ’The Simpsons’, ’The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.’, ’Roseanne’, ’Cosby & Co.’ (before the scandal), and ’Full House’ increasingly feel like fossils from a time when the family was still seen as society’s most reliable messy closet.
Despite the change in focus and storytelling, it is still worth showing up in the TV’s room to watch both real families and convincingly fictional ones shoulder the sorrows of the world – and of everyday life.
Read Lucia Odoom’s entire essay on the moderne family represented through TV here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.