Unemployment insurance for the self-employed: What is the unemployment benefit?

If you apply for unemployment benefit I as a self-employed person, the employment agency will use this to calculate your unemployment benefit I Income based on the average achieved in the qualification level in which the employment agency wants to place you. Sound complicated? But it's actually quite simple:

The problem of self-employed

The self-employed can voluntarily insure themselves in the statutory unemployment insurance. The conditions have changed significantly for 2011. Here is an overview of the new and old regulations. Only: Some may - others continue to remain unemployed only unemployment benefits II.

Self-employed people who notice that the orders are not going well usually have a Problem: You are not automatically insured against unemployment. Therefore, after many years of self-employment, you are usually not entitled to unemployment benefits, even if you have dutifully paid into the statutory unemployment insurance for years as an employee. Some people like themselves there feel, as if pushed off a cliff and landed in Hartz IV!

Voluntary insurance

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The federal government has also noticed that this is not so great. Since 2007, the self-employed have therefore had the option of taking out voluntary insurance. So far allowed entrepreneur only enter statutory unemployment insurance in the first month of their self-employment.

This has changed now. However, you have to meet some conditions if you want to continue to be insured! For example, you must still have previously been compulsorily insured. So still none Insurance for those who have never been employed. And not for those who have been self-employed for a long time. A pity!

Conditions for long-term self-employment

• In the two years prior to your start-up, you must have paid at least 360 days of compulsory contributions as an employee to the statutory unemployment insurance scheme or have previously received unemployment benefits or a different remuneration rate (transition, maintenance or insolvency allowance). How long you've got this money is no matter!
• You must take a self-employed activity for which you work at least 15 hours a week. You have to prove this at the employment agency, for example through a commercial application or by your tax office at the tax office.
• You must submit the “Application for voluntary continued insurance” at the latest three months after starting self-employment with the employment agency. The month is usually 30 days.

Unemployment insurance so far

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The statutory unemployment insurance has been incredibly cheap for the self-employed with a monthly contribution of around 20 euros - with full Performance! Because the self-employed pay a fixed amount, which is calculated independently of real income. However: From 2011 and especially from 2012 it will clear more expensive!

Previous solution

Until now, self-employed persons pay only a fixed contribution of about 20 Euro for the unemployment insurance scheme and were fully entitled to all benefits of statutory unemployment insurance.

But as is well known, they have to save because too little income is too high expenditure face. Who knows, maybe the significantly higher contributions for the self-employed should now pull the cart out of the mud.

The contributions double!

From 2011 the contributions are simply doubled: In West Germany self-employed pay for 2011 38,33 Euro, in East Germany 32,60 Euro.

But the “best” is yet to come: From 2012, the contributions will be doubled again: in 2012, the contributions will increase to 76,65 euros (West) and 65,20 (East) euros per month.

Conditions

There is an exception: If you are only self-employed, you only pay 2012 Euro or 38,33 Euro in the first year of foundation.

You must pay this contribution alone as all other insurance contributions (apart from the artist's social insurance). You can also make it as an annual one-time payment.

Voluntary insurance becomes mandatory!

The problem with voluntary employment insurance: If your application successfully is, an "insurance obligation relationship on application" arises. You can only cancel this if you end your self-employment again or if the insurance has existed for five years - in this case you can cancel with a notice period of three months to the end of the month.

Whoever wants to terminate the insurance obligation beforehand, a trick helps: The insurance ends automatically if you have not paid the contributions for three months. However, you are no longer entitled to unemployment benefit.

The conditions at a glance

If your work is suspended due to lack of order and you want to apply for unemployment benefits, there are four different qualification groups, where the employment agency is based on a lumped net salary. The unemployment allowance is then calculated according to this net salary. And this is how it looks:

• for a university or polytechnic degree 3.066,00 Euro (West) or 2.688,00 Euro (East)
• (2.240,00 Euro (West) or 2.240,00 Euro (East) in the case of a technical qualification, a master craftsman or a comparable degree.
• with an 1.055,00 Euro (West) or 1.792,00 Euro (East)
• if no training is required 1.533,00 Euro (West) or 1.344,00 Euro (East)

Payroll tax class

From these income you first deduct a lump sum of 21 percent for the social insurance contributions as well as the wage tax of the respective tax class and the solidarity surcharge. Even if the tax class does not matter to you as a self-employed person - it is used for the calculation of the unemployment allowance I.

Therefore check your payroll tax card, which is usually sent to you, and make a correction. Whoever does not have a payroll tax card / class is sorted into a notional wage tax class according to his personal circumstances at the beginning of the year.

If you are under 55

From this lump-sum net salary you get 60 percent if you have children 67 percent. For two months you have paid contributions, you receive two months of unemployment benefit I.

If you are under 55, you will receive unemployment benefit I for a maximum of one year, if you are older, for a maximum of 18 months (this is the key date). Age on the day of application).

Example

For example, if you have a university degree but no children, you will receive unemployment benefit a month in West Germany in tax code I 1.124,00 Euro.

Conversely, you will be taxed in East Germany in tax class III 720,00 Euro if you have a child.

The Crux with the qualification groups

If the employment agency feels it is reasonable to put you in a step below your previous qualification (which gives you less unemployment benefit I), you can appeal.

The price-performance ratio makes unemployment insurance quite worthwhile for the self-employed, however, the changed conditions from 2011 must be taken into account. Because, to put it bluntly, unemployment insurance is not suitable for registering unemployed every few months with every order downturn. There are several reasons for this: You can only register as unemployed for a limited period of time. And it is simply too bureaucratic.

Apply only twice ALG

Unemployment insurance sounds great: Every time you're without a job for a long time, you go to the employment agency and report it for sure unemployed, gets Money.. Hooray! But wait, of course it's not that easy! As a self-employed person, you can only apply for unemployment benefit twice.

After that, you only have a new claim to unemployment benefit I if you paid at least 360 days in the two years before the unemployment report - whether as a self-employed person or an employee does not matter!

Business etc. completely

Finally, in order to apply the unemployment allowance I, you must give up your self-employment, for example, by signing out your trade.

That would be every time, especially because of the Health insurance, more than awkward.

It is worth only for highly qualified people

While the statutory unemployment insurance has been extremely favorable in recent years with monthly contributions to 20 Euro, this has changed with the increase in 2011 and the increase planned for 2010.

Although statutory unemployment insurance is probably still more useful than private insurance offers. However, compulsory compulsory insurance is worthwhile, which will continue for five years, especially for those who are classified by the employment agency into a higher qualification level.

Residual claim on unemployment benefit

Even if you're just a temporary self-employed person to plan and have already asserted an existing entitlement to unemployment benefit, but have not yet exhausted it, voluntary unemployment insurance is not useful. You keep your remaining entitlement to unemployment benefit from your old job for four years - calculated from the first application for unemployment benefit. In this case you can save the money.

There is no reason to postpone the application if you are entitled to a significantly higher unemployment benefit from a recently terminated employment contract than you would get as a self-employed person: in such a case, there is factual protection against the higher claim.

Problem qualification groups

Unemployment insurance can also and especially be problematic for the higher qualification groups. Because it is not decisive in which qualification group you belong according to your career, but in which qualification group the employment agency classifies you for placement. It is therefore quite possible that the employment agency will include a university graduate in the group without Vocational Training sticks if it can't convey you in any other way.

And even worse: career coach Svenja Hofert reports in her career blog about Ms. Müller, a manager who, unemployed after maternity leave, was apparently randomly placed in the lowest qualification group and therefore only received correspondingly low unemployment benefits. Apparently, the employment agency had neither examined Ms. Müller's certificates nor asked about her qualifications in any other way. For Hofert, this suggests that “it is often classified just like that and out of the blue”, because she has researched more such cases, their “victims” mostly Women are.

Conclusion: first calculate

Self-employed people who want to conclude voluntary unemployment insurance, because the conditions appear to be quite good at first glance, should once again calculate whether this really makes sense.

And keep in mind: Unemployment benefits are only available if you have terminated your self-employment or have deregistered the business - and not with every small and large order backlog.

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