Minimum income is currently not a politically viable option. None of the major parties even considers it as a serious option, nor is there viable public support

Minimum income is currently not a politically viable option. None of the major parties even considers it as a serious option, nor is there viable public support for it. Minimum wage has widespread support in the population and during the last years the conservative party never styled itself as fundamentally opposed to minimum wage (though always only minimum wage implemented independently from government through collective bargaining where available). As evidenced by the loss of parties who are actively campaigning for a minimum wage in the recent election it’s also obviously not an issue that wins elections (though probably also not one that loses elections). About half of German employees are covered by those minimum wages through collective bargaining (which, of course, only exist because of the political and regulatory framework for collective bargaining in Germany). Garbage collection workers, for example, are at €8.68, lowly construction workers are at €10.25 (East Germany) and €11.05 (West Germany) and so on.