In the public perception, the picture has established that the nursing staff, who were heavily burdened in the pandemic, received a lot of applause, but nothing else has changed for them.
At least when it comes to salaries, this is not correct, as new figures from the Federal Employment Agency show: Salaries in elderly care in particular have been rising at an above-average rate for years, and so far largely without political regulation.
The current federal government has nevertheless decided to increase nursing wages by law: In future, institutions will only receive money from long-term care insurance if they pay their employees a collective wage.
Irresponsibly, however, the Union and the SPD have not clarified who should pay for it, so that the costs will most likely stick to the residents in need of care.
Such half-baked solutions must come to an end.
The care needs a real reform with a coherent refinancing.
Then, given the great demand for skilled workers, wages would rise even more.