Welfare state: minimum wage or citizen benefit? Whoever works has significantly more

According to a new study, full -time employees with a minimum wage have significantly more money available than recipients of citizens’ money. This applies to single people as well as for single parents and couples with children, namely in all regions of Germany, the Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation close to the trade.

With the study, the WSI contradicts the assumption that the citizens’ allowance is so high that the incentive is lacking to work with a low -rewarded work. Today’s minimum wage of 12.82 euros an hour was expected. It was included that people with such low wages may be entitled to social benefits such as housing benefit, child benefit or child surcharge. The calculation examples relate full -time to work, which means on average almost 38.2 hours a week.

Three case studies were expected. According to the calculations, a single man with a minimum wage comes to 2,121.58 euros gross per month. After deducting taxes and social security contributions, this remain 1,546 euros, as the WSI calculates. Together with the arithmetic claim to 26 euros in housing benefit, there is an available income of 1,572 euros.

In contrast, the man in the citizens’ allowance would have 563 euros in a standard rate and with the same rent 451.73 euros for the accommodation. Together this would be 1,015 euros – 557 euros less than in the job with a minimum wage. If the broadcasting fee of 18.36 euros is included, according to the calculations, there is still a difference of over 500 euros.

Wage gap in Munich is the slightest

Case two is a single woman with a five -year -old child. It would come full -time with a minimum wage to net 1,636 euros. With child benefit, child surcharge, housing benefit and maintenance advance, it would be 2,532 euros. According to the WSI, the two control rates for mother and child, the additional requirement for single parents, would be 1,783 euros, i.e. 749 euros less.

Third example: A couple with a earner with a minimum wage and two children aged five and 14 years would have calculated 660 euros less in the citizens’ allowance.

There are differences in the wage gap regionally, but they were based on the amount of the rental costs. In the district of Munich, Dachau and in the city of Munich, the wage gap at a single household was the lowest with 379 to 444 euros. In Nordhausen and the Vogtlandkreis, it is greatest with 662 and 652 euros.

People in the citizens’ allowance have little

“The figures in this study again show that citizen gowns regardless of the household type and from the region in which they live have less money than employed people who work on the minimum wage,” emphasized WSI director Bettina Kohlrausch. In addition, it becomes clear how few people should make up for in the citizens’ allowance. “The claim that they did not want to be employed because the citizens’ allowance can be live well is objectively wrong and stigmatizing.”

Instead of the amount of the citizens’ allowance, there is a need for action in the creation of affordable living space. She would also help qualification for employable people in reference to citizenship, she added.

The WSI study confirms the results of other studies. In 2023, the head of the employer-based institute of the German economy, Michael Hüther, said, despite the increase in the citizens’ allowance at that time, the wage gap requirement remains preserved. At the time, Hüther critically evaluated that frequent work in the low -wage sector is often not worthwhile.