The Hartz reforms have transformed Germany into a different republic. This package of laws has not only increased the risk of poverty for (long-term) unemployed individuals and their families but has also had a chilling and disciplining effect. Workforces, works councils, and trade unions have been pressured to accept wage and salary cuts as well as poorer working conditions. An expanding low-wage sector was one of the consequences, along with trends of social disintegration and greater social coldness. "Hartz IV" is the most well-known term across Europe for the reduction of social benefits and is regarded in this country as the most significant turning point in the development of the welfare state since 1945: for the first time, a wage replacement benefit that was existentially important for millions of people in Germany, unemployment assistance, was effectively abolished and replaced with a mere social welfare benefit.