If you were to start a survey as to whether the state should subsidize part-time jobs, part-time jobs for women and jobs that lead to low pensions – probably very few would say: Yes, that sounds like a brilliant idea. With mini and midi jobs, however, it is pretty much the same, in different ways.
Mini-jobbers can earn up to 450 euros a month and do not have to pay any taxes or contributions to unemployment, health and long-term care insurance; they can be exempted from compulsory pension insurance. Commercial employers pay flat-rate contributions to health, pension and accident insurance, plus taxes and levies. In return, they benefit from the fact that mini-jobbers can be deployed extremely flexibly, which is why it works out for them too.
The idea behind this type of job is to create attractive and low-threshold access to the labor market, a first step towards employment that is subject to social security contributions. In fact, this works far too seldom. In addition, the mini job is only a part-time job for almost three of the seven million marginal part-time employees. Because they have more net than gross in the mini job, it is sometimes more worthwhile than overtime or full-time in a main job that is subject to social security contributions. However, such a combination has a negative effect on retirement and professional advancement. In the main employment phase and among those who work exclusively as mini-jobbers, women are over-represented, with all the negative consequences for their retirement provisions and the development of their own careers, regardless of their partner’s income and occupation. It is not eligible for funding.
And because there are mini jobs, there must also be midi jobs. Because without the so-called transition area between marginal and full social security employment, 450.01 euros in full taxes and in some cases also taxes would be due – and the already great pull of the mini job would be increased. Therefore, at least the employee contributions for midi jobbers only increase with increasing income. Since the most recent reform by SPD Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, this transition zone only ends at 1,300 euros. This also has the side effect that you have to think twice about whether a job beyond this limit is worthwhile. Because it makes things even more difficult that the reduced pension contributions of midi jobbers no longer lead to lower pensions. The state is filling this gap – at the expense of social security and other contributors. It’s a fine thing for employers; in case of doubt, they can even translate what the employee saves in contributions into lower wages.
The mini job limit should be lowered
90 percent of midi jobbers work part-time, three quarters are women who are more at risk of old-age poverty than men. It is also worthy of criticism that with this model the state not only subsidizes low-wage earners who can barely make ends meet, but also women, for example, for whom a midi job is enough because their partner also earns them for them. This is nonsensical in terms of distribution policy – and it is of no use to women, because even a subsidized midi job does not give them economic independence.
Nevertheless, according to the election program, the SPD wants to expand the midi zone even further, up to 1,600 euros. On the other hand, she attacks the mini-job with her promise of a higher minimum wage: if it came, but the mini-job limit was not raised, mini-jobbers would not benefit from the higher minimum wage. The employment model would become less attractive. The FDP and Union, on the other hand, want to raise the mini-job limit, the FDP calls it “performance-based”, the Union “flexible”. In fact, however, a questionable form of employment would become entrenched in this way. The left, in turn, wants to abolish mini-jobs, as do the Greens, with exceptions for retirees and students.
The next federal government should at least think about lowering the mini-job limit; as a part-time job, this construct should be completely abolished anyway. The midi jobs would then also no longer be needed. The goal must be regular employment. Because neither a professional life nor a pension plan can be built on a mini or midi job.