I think many people actually believe that if you take money away from “other” people, like refugees or people on welfare, that money will be funneled to them. It’s a zero sum game, sure, but the flow of money is always upwards. Recent evidence would be tax cuts for companies (which of course only affect companies making profits and not the many struggling companies in the industry sector and much less so any actual working people).

There are many issues like the downtrodden infrastructure, shortages in the medical sector or in the public administration. Already today some things take ages. There are many everyday tasks that become more difficult, especially for workers that cannot freely distribute their time to get that doctors appointment or daycare for their children. Also, there is risk of inflation eating up the higher wages. That depends on how much productivity can be raised but a loss of almost 15 percent in output will be hard to offset.

I have difficulty seeing this situation as a win for anybody.

Edit: for some individuals that will obviously be a win but for the society as a whole it will not.

The German economy will be short of 7 million workers in 10 years. That will severely affect the economic output and the general welfare. An obvious solution would be to attract people from other countries to come work in Germany. Incidentally, there have been many asylum seekers in the past 10 years. However, due to public sentiment fueled by right wing propaganda, ruling parties have worked to increase obstacles to move to Germany. Recent examples would be the closing of borders to EU neighbours or cutting welfare checks for Ukrainian refugees (and services that help them finding work, which is more relevant than the financial cuts). The far right AfD party is and has been on the rise and they were able to dictate policy related to foreigners as the other parties try to regain lost votes, mostly unsuccessfully so far. In general, this creates a hostile atmosphere for people from abroad, making Germany less attractive as a place to work or new home. This of course directly contradicts the requirement of additional people in the work force, that’s what I meant when saying that this is a self-made problem by the government.

This is of course very brief and simplified but I hope it gives you an impression. Yes, MAGAesque politics are on the rise in other parts of the world as well.

Lower taxes, keep potential workers from foreign countries out, complain about demographic change and fiscal limitations. CDU creates the problem and then complains about it. Next wave of privatization incoming I guess.