Instead of the wage gap between East and West Germany narrowing and the average salaries converging, it continues to grow: in 2022, full-time employees in the East earned around 13,000 euros gross less than in the West. This is the result of figures from the Federal Statistical Office at the request of the left-wing faction in the Bundestag, which are available to the RND newspapers. Accordingly, the annual gross salary in West Germany is 58,085 euros on average, in East Germany 45,070 euros.
Looking at the latest figures, the wage gap between East and West has continued to widen. In 2021 this was still 12,173 euros, in 2020 it was 11,967 euros according to statistics. One reason for the growing wage gap is said to be special payments from which West German workers benefited more in 2022.
In all East German federal states, the gross annual salary in 2022 is said to have been below that of West Germany. For example, there was an average wage difference of more than 21,000 euros per year between Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Hamburg.
The Left sees a “political scandal against the East Germans” here, as they told the RND newspapers. She also establishes a connection between the wage difference and the success of the AfD in the east. “If East German full-time employees earn an average of 13,000 euros less per year than their colleagues in West Germany, then no politician should be surprised at the high AfD values,” says Sören Pellmann, the parliamentary group’s East German representative.
Pellmann criticizes the fact that the federal government has not yet presented a plan to adjust wages. According to him, legal intervention on your part would be necessary: ”We need a federal wage adjustment law that contains several measures. Higher collective bargaining agreements and a minimum wage of 14 euros are key.”
Sources: RND, Zeit
Watch the video: You don’t talk about money – actually. Under the hashtag
