BERLIN – JULY 05: Supporting documents for legal disputes, most of them related to Germany’s Hartz IV unemployment benefits, lie stacked in the mail room at the city’s Social Court on July 5, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin’s Social Court recently announced it had received the 100,000th legal claim relating to Hartz IV since 2005. The claims are filed by people who receive Hartz IV benefits and who charge authorities have made a mistake in the benefits issued. The most common topics of dispute are denied payments for rent or heating costs, demands by authorities for a return of benefits paid or denials of benefits once a claimant starts part-time work. The number of dispute claims has been rising steadily each year, and though the city now has a total of 66 judges working to process the cases, there are over 38,000 cases still open. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
