AfD Kompakt, October 17, 2023.
Ever more employees, especially in the low-wage sector, quit their work because the citizens’ wage [Bürgergeld] promises a performance-free income. We of the AfD delegation have quite early warned that the Ampel’s Bürgergeld has been framed too abundantly and thereby lies dangerously near the applicable minimum wage. An optional increase of the statutory minimum wage needs to be carefully weighed and continually take into consideration that already today many Mittelstand operations and businesses in eastern Germany are under an enormous wage pressure and simply cannot pay a higher minimum wage. And the assertion circulating in the area of the Bürgergeld debate that there exists in this country no wage disparity requirement [Lohnabstandsgebot] is false. So decided the Federal Constitutional Court in 2020 that civil servants in the lowest pay grades need to be better off than recipients of the basic security. They should have 15 percent more net so that their work pays. And for the normal employees, who are not civil service, work should also pay. Labor market policy decisions following the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling appear to be sensible. In this sense, future wage development should anticipate Bürgergeld development. Otherwise will still more employees wander away to the Bürgergeld.
[trans: tem]
