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Thorsten Schulten and Malte Luebker


Thorsten Schulten is senior researcher at the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) within the Hans Böckler Foundation in Düsseldorf, Germany. His main fields of work are wage policy, minimum wages, collective bargaining and labour relations in an internationally comparative perspective. Malte Luebker is a senior researcher at the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) of the Hans Boeckler Foundation. His work focuses on wages, wage setting institutions and income distribution.

Thorsten Schulten and Malte Luebker

Why Won’t Wages In Europe Rise As They Should?

Thorsten Schulten and Malte Luebker 9th August 2017

The economic mainstream is perplexed: growth is finally taking hold across Europe, economic forecasts have been revised upwards, and employment is expanding. The only indicator that stubbornly refuses to follow suit is wage growth, defying textbooks and economic orthodoxy alike. Bloomberg has called it the “mystery of missing wage growth,” the Financial Times writes about […]

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Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


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WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

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In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

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