This is more than minimum wage in France.
Gotta compare those wages to where you're earning them, otherwise we're all "effective billionaires" because we don't live where the average income is under $2 an hour.
The US median individual income is higher than the German median, and the US median is well below that $48k figure. The full-time median wage in the US is around $56,000-$58,000 give or take.
German wages at the median are typically ~1/3 lower than the US.
"The average monthly gross income of households in Germany amounted to 4,979 euros in 2021, according to results of the continuous household budget surveys." - from destatis.de
That's average and it's household. The true median individual (not full-time median) is far below that for example.
- Having a partner
- Having a child
- Working from home
- The more roommates, the larger the apartment/house, the larger the costs
And that's a solution for only one of the things required to live.