Schroeder is trying to spur economic growth, slash public deficits and drive down 10 percent joblessness with hard-hitting changes to Germany's lavish social welfare system, and few are happy with the consequences.
Perhaps most Draconian among the reforms is a move to sink the benefits of some long-time unemployed to the basis of subsistence-level welfare payments - a move that authorities say could have explosive consequences.
"These are always tough conversations because it is about people's money to live on and also about sanctions," said the spokesman for the regional unemployment benefits authority in the western state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Werner Marquis.
"You can't rule out the rare case of someone losing it."
He said there would be "no meetings with personnel in the presence of security guards" but noted that the office computers were equipped with alarm buttons in case of emergency.
"We don't know what to expect when unemployment benefits and welfare are combined, but we want to be ready," said Christine Roepke of the labour agency in Gera in relatively poor eastern Germany, which has begun a formal search for its own security personnel.
Although the so-called Unemployment Benefits II rule is not to be introduced until January, some welfare case workers are already feeling the heat.
"There are already unbelievable tensions at the social welfare offices," said the head of the German Police Trade Union, Konrad Freiberg.
Last year, a welfare recipient ran through a dole office in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg with a jerry can full of petrol to frighten personnel. In another case, a woman went for the throat of a staff worker.
And in December 2003, a man brandishing a gas pistol demanded cash from a terrified welfare office employee. When he pulled the trigger, the office had to be evacuated to allow the tear gas to disperse.
Now that welfare and jobless benefits are becoming one and the same in tens of thousands of cases, fears of similar incidents are prompting authorities to take a new look at security.
"Even filling out the forms for Unemployment Benefits II could set people off," said Simone Simon, the director of the employment agency in the eastern town of Nordhausen.
Adding to the outrage are restrictions on housing subsidies which set maximum limits for the size and standard of a home based on the size of a family.
The announcement forced Economy Minister Wolfgang Clement to deny this week that there would be mass evictions for people on the dole and resettlement in former communist housing blocks, insisting that moves would be forced "only in a few isolated cases".