salary
5.90 euros less in the East: Wage adjustment very slow
In 2021, an average wage of EUR 26.81 was paid in the western German federal states and Berlin, and EUR 20.91 in the eastern federal states. Photo: Marijan Murat/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Equal pay for equal work? Unions have been demanding this for employees in the new federal states for decades. But progress is a snail.
More than three decades after German reunification, the wage gap between West and East is slowly disappearing.
According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, the gap in the average hourly wage in 2021 was EUR 5.90 – EUR 26.81 was paid in the western German federal states and Berlin, and EUR 20.91 in the eastern federal states. Compared to 2020, the gap has narrowed by just eight cents.
At that time, the average gross hourly wage was EUR 26.26 in the West and EUR 20.28 in the East. Nationwide, this resulted in a value of 25.40 euros for 2020, and then 25.96 euros for 2021. So all values increased only slightly. In the east, the increase was slightly higher than in the west, so that the gap closed a little further, but only minimally. The left-wing faction in the Bundestag asked for the data. They are available to the German Press Agency.
second class workers
“East Germans remain second-class workers,” criticized the left-wing faction’s East German representative, Sören Pellmann. «5.90 euros per hour less wages in the East is an unacceptable situation. Eight cents of adjustment per year means that it could take more than 70 years for east wages to reach west levels.» The traffic light coalition is not doing enough for alignment.
Pellmann conceded that the government’s planned increase in the minimum wage to €12 would have a positive effect on wages in the East. But that’s not enough. Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil and the Eastern Commissioner Carsten Schneider (both SPD) should “finally present a timetable for aligning wages between East and West”.