AfD boss Chrupalla has his difficulties with numbers

When Tino Chrupalla left the master school of the Chamber of Crafts in Dresden twenty years ago, he must have been quite good at dealing with numbers. Otherwise he would not have been able to graduate as a master painter and varnisher.

In the meantime, the AfD co-boss no longer personally embellishes houses or apartments. Now he would like to rebuild the whole country – and Europe at the same time.

AfD boss dodges when it becomes concrete

Only calculations, cost estimates and other calculations in connection with political proposals are not his thing. In any case, in the summer interview on ZDF, he always had to pass when it became concrete.

Let’s take the shortage of skilled workers. He didn’t even get involved with a number of how big the gap between supply and demand is. He had nothing against immigration, as long as the new recruits speak German and are willing to pay into the social security system.

Although Chrupalla should know that migrants – just like Germans – have no choice at all whether they pay contributions to pension insurance or health insurance. These taxes are deducted from the wages of all employees. There is no alternative to this.

Chrupalla ignorant of citizen money

But immigrants, it became clear, are at best the very last resort for the AfD. Chrupalla: “We have enough potential in our own population that we have to tap into”.

He meant the approximately 2.5 million unemployed and 2.5 million young people without a professional qualification. He wants to deal with them with “demanding and promoting”. It is unfair that non-working young, healthy people get the same money from the state as people who work 40 hours.

What Chrupalla should actually know: Basic income for single young people is significantly lower than the minimum wage for a full-time employee. The latter gets just under 2,100 euros a month, a single recipient of basic income benefits, including rent, 700 to 800 euros.

The state quota thing

The AfD boss made another suggestion as to how the potential for skilled workers could be increased: more people would have to do “value-adding” work. That’s why he wants to get to the state quota of almost 52 percent. This measures the share of government spending in total economic output. This means that every second euro generated is currently claimed by the state.

The AfD politician does not seem to know this. In any case, he gave a highly idiosyncratic definition. In his opinion, a state quota of 52 percent means that every second person works in the public sector. In fact, just under 12 percent of Germans work in the public sector.

The 20 year gap

Since Chrupalla is obviously not convinced that he can recruit the necessary number of skilled workers from the “potential” he has defined, he is also counting on more children being fathered in Germany again. The family policy is currently “disastrous”.

“We have a de facto one-child policy,” he said. That’s where you have to start so that Germany “in 20, 30 years” can “generate the skilled workers again with our young people” on its own.

After all, Chrupalla also knows that even with a significant increase in the birth rate, it would take at least two decades for the babies of the year 2024 to have completed an education. For this reason alone, it will not work without immigration. But because the AfD would like to seal off Germany, he did not go into detail.

Master of swiping

To remain as vague as possible was clearly Chrupalla’s interview strategy. He pointed out, for example, that his parliamentary group had made a lot of proposals in favor of those on low incomes and for parents with children. He left it open what their support would look like in detail and how it would be financed.

Chrupalla’s weakness in facts and figures would have required more persistent inquiries from Shakuntala Banerjee. The interviewer was obviously more interested in working through her comprehensive list of questions than in getting Chrupalla to make clear statements. The AfD chairman was able to present himself as a master – as a master at swiping.