Minimum wage: Why the strategy of the SPD is completely puzzling

The SPD has a trigger word: minimum wage. When party leader Lars Klingbeil expresses it, the coalition partner triggers rhythm disorders like the chablis in the heart patient. Already in April, when the Chancellor was not even elected, Klingbeil used the trigger. He emphasized on television that the statutory minimum wage would increase from 12.82 euros to 15 euros in 2026. Attachment glimmer in the Union, CDU boss Friedrich Merz countered immediately: the state minimum wage commission decided on the amount of the minimum wage. That is law.

Why do the comrades do that, do you ask yourself? Why does the SPD even play with the idea of ​​overriding the decision of the independent minimum wage commission, whose negotiations go to the home straight these days, by the Bundestag decision if there are no 15 euros? It has already passed the committee presumptuously, in 2022 under Chancellor Olaf Scholz – and thus restored the minimum wage by law from 10.45 euros to 12 euros.

It is probably related to the search for a new right to exist. Because the SPD is not making progress. In surveys, she comes on the spot or even loses approval while the CDU can grow. The SPD would apparently would like to go back to the roots a bit and score with the workers, especially among the approximately six million low wages. The “hard -working people” who cannot feed their families, as the comrades’ speeches say again and again. You do not save with injustice poetry, as if there were no state transfer payments that cushion hardening.

However, the party is wrong in two ways. On the one hand, the workers of all people run like they define the opinion researchers of Infratest dimap (mainly physically active), the SPD of them. In February 38 percent chose the AfD – in 2013 it was only six percent. During this period, the SPD crashed from 27 to twelve percent. This is also why she was introducing the worst Bundestag election result in her history this year.

Secondly, the statutory minimum wage hardly plays a role for the majority of today’s workers in industry, craft or service. Her lowest hourly wages are already far above it. Because employers and employees have negotiated them by collective agreement in experienced co -determination tradition. Temporary workers, for example, receive 14 euros, painters and painters 15 euros, roofer 16 euros, building cleaner 17.65 euros, nursing staff 19.50 euros.

The statutory minimum wage mainly affects employees at companies without collective bargaining, i.e. first of all in smaller companies. They do not form a milieu near the SPD like the industrial workers once. You can find them across all industries. Some professional groups are particularly affected, according to the Federal Statistical Office, including kitchen aids, forest workers, harvest helpers, hairdressers, cleaning aids, building cleaners, security guards, courier drivers, call center employees, but also pupils and students in the holiday job. The minimum wage is most common in East Germany, where the SPD is difficult for itself.

For low earners, the consultations of the minimum wage commission are the replacement for their own collective bargaining. It is good for them if the committee defines the height of the minimum wage with a lot of tact, because it must be fair for employees and employers so that economy also works fairly in the low -wage sector.

In addition: just 15 euros will rather bring Federal Minister of Finance Klingbeil further than many affected people, because the higher minimum wage would be counted towards social benefits and thus relieves the state coffers, while the employees were hardly in their wallet and may fly out of the curve. For this reason alone, the SPD should not try to play the minimum wage commission again, just to enforce an overly lavish election promise (17 percent minimum lighter increase!).

Against this background, the comrades should no longer provoke the coalition, but should maintain the surprisingly long -lasting calm. Instead, they could try to find more voters among the elderly. The SPD is already on the way from the workers to the pensioner party. In the last Bundestag election, almost half of the voters were over 60 years old. Old people form an honorable clientele. And it has potential! While the number of low wages (hopefully) shrinks (hopefully) through a fair minimum wage and new economic growth, the best-aging brigades are thriving: by 2035, the number of over 67-year-olds will increase from the current 16.4 million to at least 20 million.

So peoples, uh sizis: listen to the signals!