FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki has criticized SPD leader Lars Klingbeil’s push for a minimum wage increase of up to 14 euros. He thinks absolutely nothing of it, said Kubicki to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “If Lars Klingbeil were consistent, he would demand that the minimum wage commission be completely dissolved,” he added.
Kubicki pointed out that the unscheduled minimum wage increase to 12 euros last October was a one-off deviation. It had been initiated by traffic light law and not by the Minimum Wage Commission as usual.
Kubicki announces resistance
“Anyone who thinks they are always coming up with demands that are at the expense of social peace and that further weaken Germany as a business location will have to count on our resistance,” said Kubicki.
According to Klingbeil, the SPD wants to campaign for a minimum wage increase of up to 14 euros per hour. “We will ensure that Germany implements the European minimum wage directive next year. The SPD in the federal government will push for this,” he told the “Bild am Sonntag”. “Then the minimum wage can also rise again. According to experts, if fully implemented, that would be between 13.50 and 14 euros.”
Background minimum wage
After the unscheduled increase to 12 euros by the traffic light last October, the Minimum Wage Commission, made up of employer and union representatives, proposed on Monday that the statutory lower wage limit be further increased from 12 to 12.41 euros per hour on January 1, 2024 and a year later to 12 to raise .82 euros. The trade union side, for which this is too low, was outvoted in the commission and had sharply criticized it. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) had announced that the increase would still be implemented by regulation, otherwise there would be no increase at all.
