The working poor
A mom of two from Kharkiv now in Tirol set me straight last night. Her story plus other updates from Austria-land.
Last night I was tagged in a post in a Telegram group chat for Ukrainians living in Tirol.
“And those Ukrainians who work and are renting apartments on their own, and hand over their whole salary to pay rent, and they too only have €40 left for food, is that woman not worried about them? They also have children, with whom they have no one to leave, the kids are whole days alone at home or in after-school programs, which also cost money…and those Ukrainians do not receive any money or rent support from the state. Why is she only trying to help those who live for free and get fed for free?”
Naturally, I immediately replied that woman is indeed concerned and could you please write me privately to tell me your story. I share now her story with Alisa’s (name changed) permission.
“I would like to tell you about my situation. I have two children, 7 and 14. I am renting an apartment here in Tirol. I pay €800 per month for rent and electricity. I am working in a hotel. The work is seasonal and for two months in autumn and one month in spring I must take unpaid leave. I earn €1300 per month and that I have to make stretch over the months when I am not paid. I cannot receive any payments from the state for the unpaid months, because they think that my last salary should last for three months…
If not for Familienbeihilfe (Tanja: Austrian child benefit roughly €140 per kid per month), we would literally go hungry. I do not receive any child support from the children’s father. I am handicapped (Ukrainian category II), and it is really hard for me to work. They told me last year already that there is no social housing for us, and I should look for my own housing to rent. Which I did.
I am burned out, and there are many women like me, but they keep their heads down and work and do not complain. But we only hear how poor are those who live in social housing and are fed.
Believe me, we don’t eat much better. And we don’t sit around, but work all day. I cannot afford to work only 20-25 hours per week, then I would not have enough money for anything. 40 hours per week, I practically do not see my own kids. They don’t need aftercare, but Mama’s care and attention.
Women who are working on their own and renting housing also need help to pay rent, and help with school supplies and help in general, because they are cut off from all aid, unlike those who sit on the government drip.”
You can imagine how heartbroken I felt reading that last night.
And stupid, for not having paid nearly enough attention to the struggle these single moms face, working full time and not receiving any support in the process. The mathematics simply don’t add up. If they were local residents in Vienna they would be eligible for subsidised housing from the city. But Ukrainians, due to their status in Austria, cannot ask for any of these social programs. I imagine a local resident may also qualify for unemployment during the “off” months. Again, this mother has received no help in this regard.
“And in addition to all of this, I need to set aside time to learn German, we have no courses nearby. It is an hour and a half trip to Innsbruck…it will be impossible to get a better job without language skills.
I came in March 2022. We are from Kharkiv. My building was bombed. We have nowhere to go back to. We are now in Ried im Oberinntal. Of course those Ukrainians living in social housing are afraid of getting jobs, because their quality of life will not improve, and they will have to work hard and a lot.”
Alisa has done everything the Austrian state could have asked of her, and more, works full time as a single mom to two kids, pays taxes, and yet she receives zero support. No rent subsidies, no childcare subsidies, simply expected to house, feed, and clothe herself and two growing kids on a truly minimum wage salary for a full time, hard physical labor job which then lets her go three months out of the year with no unemployment.
She is essentially paid €8 per hour and expected to meet all her family’s needs on that alone.
Can’t make it up.
Shameful. I leave this here because in the context of Nehammr’s recent €1.40 McDonald’s statement, this story feels more relevant than ever. I also understand Alisa’s frustration with her compatriots who dare to complain about merger benefits while not working anything close to full time hours. She has a fair point.
I also received a text this week from Inna (name also changed), who wanted to share her financial situation with me. She writes:
“How to live on €260. My husband and I. We each receive €260 plus €330 compensation for housing. In total, €880 per month. We have to pay €550 in rent. We rent from people we know, and by Vienna standards this is a cheap rent. But we only receive €330 in compensation. The rest of the rent money we have to cover with our food money.
Then we must pay: phones €20, internet €20, two transport passes €66, so if you take 850-550-20-20-66 it leaves €194 per month for the two of us to eat.
About the opportunity to work.
Husband: He has had two operation and is handicapped. He is now recovering and learning German (so far A1) and so it is early for him to think about going to work. And he cannot do all jobs.
Me: It was really hard from June, so twice a week I got a a store near us, and help as a volunteer, and then I can bring home a little bit of food and expired products. So we can eat. From September 1 I started working Geringfügig (this is usually capped at a small number of hours per week). It was what I could find.
Before that I studied German EVERY DAY including 3-4 hours all by myself. I studied after the German classes, because I understood that will give me a chance to find a job. I am 49 and in my age it is more difficult to learn a new language than for the kids and young people. No one talks about this, but it needs we need more time. It is impossible to move to Austria and immediately look for a job.
So now I wonder. How much will be our new calculation each month? I hope it will be more than now. It is really hard to live as a couple on €194 per month (we also have to buy toilet paper and cleaning products).
Tanja, this is my real story. But please anonymously as my husband does not want publicity, and our friends who rent us the apartment also don’t need any attention. You may translate and use our story as you see fit.”
I would really ask everyone to just take a second and imagine if you lived like Alisa or Inna. Just for a second. Think about all the things you do every day which would suddenly become impossible. Just like my morning cappuccino.
This week, much like domestic Austrian politics, has not been drama free. Two women told me their Ukrainian license plates were stolen off their cars parked on Vienna streets. 3rd district and 12th district. I of course told them they must report these incidents to the police. Very upsetting it is happening again. One of the women said she is so sick of it happening that she started to pull the plates off herself or cover them, to which I had to explain that is actually also illegal. If your car is parked in the street and not in a driveway, it does need to be plated. I know one Ukrainian who parked his car on a street, didn’t drive it all year (no gas money), and recently received a €1200 ticket because the car wasn’t insured. If it’s parked on the street, it needs to be plated and insured. Clearly the game of pulling off Ukrainian plates is still being played by someone locally. Unfortunately.
Another mother contacted me from Salzburg where she received a very disturbing email/phone call from the school authorities — the municipal team, not the school itself. Her daughter is nearly 12 and therefore began now 5th grade (1st grade middle school), a class for which she is already old by age. The authorities now claim “there was a mistake” and want the girl to go back to 4th grade Volkschule with 9 and 10 year olds. In October, after she has been attending middle school for a month. Cannot make it up, and I really, really hope this mom will be able to push back. She was so upset, saying they had already bought school supplies and her daughter had finally settled in and it makes no sense because in the class there is also a 10 year old Ukrainian boy who knows no German and no one is asking him to leave…
My heart aches for all this unnecessary drama in the hands of incompetent, heartless bureaucrats. I do not know what else to call them. Have they never worked ever before in their lives with vulnerable people who have fled war and are traumatised and trying their best to adjust to a very different new reality on a very limited budget?
Another woman wrote in a total panic in our Telegram group yesterday, something about a private housing arrangement but now the guy changed his mind, she has to leave, she has nowhere to do, he says she owes him rent, he signed a contract on her behalf…we suggest social housing and then it turns out she once lived in social housing and then took a paid job and then was handed a bill for several thousand Euros by the housing authority and now has to pay it back over time. There is so little information publicly available about the calculations made when Ukrainians living in organized, social housing take paid jobs. They make uniformed decisions and these come back to bite them later.
A deaf man asked in our group yesterday what is legal and correct. He earns €1500 per month through a program to get handicapped people employed (hats off, a wonderful thing), and has now been told he must pay a huge amount in rent (€800) + social insurance (€600) to the dorm where he lives. Which is insane, but that is apparently what he was told. We all in the chat (I am thankfully helped by several tireless volunteers who know the system better than I do) say you must demand the calculation in writing, something smells fishy.
Speaking of fishy, a woman wrote a very interesting anecdote yesterday, one I am inclined to believe only now, after a year and a half of this madness. She had a baby in Austria over nine months ago. When Ukrainians have babies here, they can apply for maternity payments, and then must give up their Grundversorgung payments. The mother did this. It took them nine months (!) to calculate her aid, and now she must repay part of the basic payments she received while on maternity leave. She went to the advisory location in Vienna, run by an NGO, and was told, orally, to transfer some of the money to an IBAN (bank account of charity), and some of the funds to put in cash in the piggy bank for the “clothing and shoe gift cards.”
She writes, cash, in the piggy bank, this doesn’t sound kosher?
No, we all told her, cash in the piggy bank supposedly to buy gift cards later (which btw the state buys and delivers in bulk — nice kickbacks for businesses whose owners are close to the governing ÖVP) does not sound write in all. Demand an explanation in writing, and demand that the payments be wire transfers, i.e. a paper trail.
Many people write me asking for housing. I have none.
Many people write me asking for grocery cards. I explain we are out and I do not have any more nor any perspective on when I may receive some. A man of 70 originally from Sloviansk, Donetsk oblast, now living somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Austria sent me a video from Bakhmut. I know, sir, I explain. I know where you come from. I don’t have any more cards. I am so sorry. I write down his name and address just in case.
An independent journalist contacted me and wants to write about Grundversorgung. I could have hugged her. Instead, I gave a few contacts. That part is harder now. Many Ukrainians took the time to speak with journalists early on, didn’t see any tangible results from those interactions, and therefore the willingness to talk is markedly different than it was in say spring 2022. I continue to say “Tanja says” in meaningless compared to “Iryna herself says”, but it is an uphill struggle to find people willing to speak freely. Many are truly fearful of losing what they do have hear, for being punished for speaking out. Others have grown more cynical, arguing, it doesn’t help anyway. To which I can only answer you will never know if you never try.
The Austrian government voted this summer to send an extra €60 per month per child to low income parents. The first of those payments started to be paid at the end of last week. Much to our surprise, some, but not all, Ukrainian moms woke up to a pleasant addition to their bank accounts. Not universally, and not in all regions. We are trying to establish the pattern, as even some government employees had told us they did not expect Ukrainians to receive this aid, as it was designed with local recipients of Mindestsicherung or single-earner households in mind. So far we seem to have established families are receiving the funds if they received at least seven months of child benefit in 2022, and filed for the single-earner tax rebate in 2022. So those in the system the longest, whom you could argue need the money less than those who just arrived, are the ones receiving it. In any case, €60 is not a lot of money, so I hope it reaches as many of these families as possible. I also don’t know how many months this is for. It seems they paid July money now, in early October, and not to everyone.
It is amazing to me that the entire government doesn’t collapse when you see how many of these programs function in reality.
In recommended reading and listening, I came across this thought-provoking long read from July, Why the War in Ukraine May Be a Long One, but still relevant, and also recommend this podcast. You make not like what you hear nor will you agree with all of it, but I think it is still an interesting listen.
I also recommend this ORF radio report (in German) about the Superhumans rehabilitation center in Lviv.
My eldest was watching C-SPAN live on his laptop before bed last night. We watched that little bit of sad history, too. Chaos appears to be the new normal on both sides of the ocean. I hope the adults will come back to the rooms, and soon.