Under the challenged provisions, however, monthly lump sum benefit payments are calculated in such a way that not all consumer expenditure recorded in the income and consumption survey for the reference households belonging to the lower income groups is recognised as necessary to secure the existence minimum. Instead, for single persons the legislature takes into account EUR 132 less, thus in total just 72 %, and for children, depending on their age group, between EUR 69 and EUR 76 less and thus 75 % and 78 % respectively […]. While not recognising certain items of consumption as needs can be justified (see C II 2 e above), the legislature’s removals of such a scale reach the very limit of what is constitutionally required to secure minimum existence. If the legislature requires persons in need to balance internally, to make savings or even to take a loan to cover existential needs, it must ensure that this is in fact possible by providing the financial means or ensure that needs be covered otherwise. 121 g) There are no fundamental constitutional objections to the way standard needs of levels 4 and 6 are fixed. As nobody involved in the initial proceedings falls within the 7 to 14 age group (standard needs level 5), this group is not subject to review in the present case. 122 aa) The objections to classification into age groups for determining the standard needs of children and adolescents are not justified. By distinguishing three age groups, the legislature has taken reasonable account of the phases of child development and oriented its classification to robust scientific and practical findings (see A I 4 c bb 2 a above). There were no urgent constitutional reasons to again change the differentiation of age groups which already applied previously, since standard needs are now no longer set arbitrarily for “small adults” (cf. BVerfGE 125, 175 <246>). 123 bb) There is no constitutional objection to determining the standard needs for securing the existence of children and adolescents by way of a distribution scheme (cf. BVerfGE 125, 175 <249 and 250.>). Since no data is collected on their expenses in detail, the legislature uses distribution schemes to allocate expenses of family households mathematically to the adults and the child or adolescent […]. These distribution schemes have been worked out on behalf of the competent ministry, determined in model calculations by the Federal Statistical Office and confirmed in a scientific study by the Ruhr University of Bochum, about which the Federal Government gave a report to the Bundestag […]; they have thus been established in a way that in itself stands up to scrutiny. 124 cc) The objections to the specific levels of average expenses for children and adolescents determined in this way do not necessarily mean that the provisions submitted for review currently violate the Constitution. Needs may have to be secured interpreting statutory law in conformity with the Constitution if needs are not covered by other means. The legislature is obliged here, too, to take any serious doubts as to the covering of needs into account (see C II 2 f above). 125 (1) There is no objection to the level of standard needs set in level 6 for children enti- 126 23/29