@ Tink (Marianne too), re Schroeder's comment about the low-wage sector; well, if I were to try to defend his idea of "best low-wage sector," it would be a comparison with the US, where with bad Welfare-type rules it did not take long to build an underclass of hopelessness, totally dependent on minimal government handouts, almost impossible to find their way back into a creative working lifestyle of self-respect.
So, was Schroeder thinking of that program as a stepping-stone, preventing such a culture of hopelessness from setting in? But then (sigh) further down in Marianne's Reuters link, there is a topic ROAD TO NOWHERE, with this: "(New categories of low-income, government-subsidized jobs) were created to help those with bad job prospects eventually become reintegrated into the regular labor market, but surveys show that for most people, they lead nowhere."
And still further down in the article, I laughed sorrowfully at this sentence: "Low wage workers earn less relative to the median in Germany than in all other OECD states except South Korea and the United States." (My emphasis)
Also, got a Q for Tink about the Social Democrats, but I think I will post it as a separate question for all to consider!