It's not just tech workers, pretty much any academic will hit that limit. And if you live in an expensive area, 1800 Euro can be a severe cap. With mortgages to pay, it can be unrealistic for the father to take more than the minimum of two months off.
House sales have hit an all-time high last year. The share of foreign buyers has increased over the past decade but is still insignificant. So someone is definitely buying houses and tech workers tend to be paid quite well in comparison to others.
Only 25% of the working German population earns less than around 2300€, 1800€ is, at minimum, a 22% reduction in salary for 75+% of the workers. The median is about ~4100€, so more than half of a pay cut for 50% of the working population.
So yes, it's a good amount but still much less than the minimum 80% here in Sweden.
No, I wasn't aware that it's 1800€ net, when I see figures on wage/benefits I always consider it pretax as that is how we talk about them in Sweden, never net salary.
The money paid by the government is based on the net salary and is tax free (I think with so called "Progressionsvorbehalt", which means it increases your tax rate just like any other income, but the tax rate is only applied to the rest of your income that year). Usually salaries are posted/compared based on gross, when you compare jobs/employers, etc. But when talking about government programs, the net is more important, because that is what people based on their family situation (being married, number of kids, etc.) actually get. Otherwise you just talk about how much the government is paying itself.
