She completed her secondary education at a commercial academy (German: Handelsakademie), a type of five-year high school similar to a gymnasium but with added business-oriented vocational training.

[2][3] Starting in August 2003, Hartinger-Klein served as the general manager of the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions (German: Hauptverband der Sozialversicherungsträger), an umbrella organization supervising and representing all of Austria's public insurers.

[2][4] Her responsibilities included managing the multitude of contractual relationships the Association maintained with physicians, pharmacies, and the pharmaceutical industry.

These plans having been implemented, Hartinger-Klein was appointed minister of labor, social affairs, health and consumer protection on 8 January 2018.

[2][6] At the time the first Kurz government took office, Austria had enacted but not yet implemented a general smoking ban in bars and restaurants.

[7] Heinz-Christian Strache, the populist Freedom Party leader and newly minted vice chancellor, opposed the ban.

It was wrong, she asserted in a debate in the National Council, to forbid hosts from being hospitable, and unhelpful to subject minority rights to majority decisions.

The cabinet expects the AUVA to draw up appropriate measures by the end of the year and threatens to dissolve the institution should it fail to comply, distributing its responsibilities across other public insurers.

[16] Opposition politicians such as Josef Muchitsch, an employees' representative and member of parliament for the Social Democratic Party, have accused Hartinger-Klein of being biased against the AUVA.

[13][17] Max Lercher, General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party, described Hartinger-Klein's attacks on the AUVA as a "war" and a "personal vendetta".

Her father identified as a conservative − an unusual and conspicuous posture for an Austrian railway worker at the time − and her mother was a Social Democrat.

Hartinger-Klein's husband, Andreas Klein, is an Evangelical theologist, ethicist, lecturer with the University of Vienna,[20] and ethics consultant.