Overview

• Across all modeled household types and regions, WSI calculates a net income advantage from full-time minimum-wage work over Bürgergeld.
• Average monthly gaps are reported at roughly €557 for singles, €749 for single parents with one child, and €660 for a family with two children.
• The advantage is smallest in high-rent cities and largest in cheaper areas, falling to about €380 for a single in Munich and rising in rural eastern districts like Vogtlandkreis and Nordhausen.
• FOCUS reproduces an example showing a single worker netting €1,546 from a 38-hour minimum-wage job versus about €1,033 available on Bürgergeld in the same scenario.
• The IW questions WSI’s housing-cost assumptions and notes the calculated gaps presume workers claim all eligible top-up benefits, while an IAB interim review finds no clear employment boost from the Bürgergeld reform as 2024 spending reached €46.8 billion.