In Saxony, the Day of Prayer and Repentance is celebrated this Wednesday. The Free State is the only federal state to keep the holiday. However, criticism is voiced every year. This is because employees in Saxony pay more money into the care fund. "The Day of Prayer and Repentance costs employees in Saxony 250 euros every year. That's unfair," rages SPD party and parliamentary group leader Henning Homann. Deutsche Presse-Agentur presents the background and positions.
Why is Saxony taking a special path?
The Day of Prayer and Repentance was abolished as a public holiday throughout Germany in 1995 to enable the financing of the newly introduced long-term care insurance. Only Saxony, with its then Minister President Kurt Biedenkopf (CDU), opposed this. While the day has been a normal working day in all other federal states since then, Saxony has the day off. To finance the day, however, they have to pay 0.5 percent more of their gross salary into care insurance than employees in the rest of the country.
What is the background to the funding?
In essence, it was about offsetting the additional burden on employers caused by a public holiday. Initially, employees even paid the entire contribution rate for the new insurance scheme on their own. In the opinion of critics, the argument that employers in Saxony are additionally burdened is invalid in view of the number of public holidays in other federal states. In comparison with Bavaria and its twelve public holidays, for example, there are only eleven in Saxony, they claim.
