The east German as victim and villain

East Germans are all too often portrayed either as the victim or the villain - as some new data on income shows.

An east German who works a full-time job is twice as likely to be on a low-income salary as someone in the west - that’s the conclusion of a study on wages published on Thursday by the Hans Böckler Stiftung.

The study found that 29 percent of workers in the former east are on a salary defined by the Bundesagentur für Arbeit as “low income.” In hard numbers that means a pre-tax income of €2,284 per month or less. In the states of the former west by contrast, just 15 percent earn under this level.

The idyllic town of Seiffen in the Erzgebirge district. Photo: Shutterstock

Of the ten districts nationwide with the highest proportion of rock bottom salaries, every single one is in the east. Lowlight is the Erzgebirge district in Saxony, where 43 percent of workers are in the lowest salary bracket.

At the other end of the list is the west German city of Wolfsburg, the wealthy home of …