diff --git a/src/bin/pgbench/pgbench.c b/src/bin/pgbench/pgbench.c
index 14dbc4510c..95b23895ff 100644
--- a/src/bin/pgbench/pgbench.c
+++ b/src/bin/pgbench/pgbench.c
@@ -4080,7 +4080,7 @@ checkInitSteps(const char *initialize_steps)
 
 	for (const char *step = initialize_steps; *step != '\0'; step++)
 	{
-		if (strchr(ALL_INIT_STEPS " ", *step) == NULL)
+		if (strchr(ALL_INIT_STEPS, *step) == NULL)
 		{
 			fprintf(stderr,
 					"unrecognized initialization step \"%c\"\n",