In view of the generally increasing life expectancy and the burden on the social security funds, the Bundesbank has proposed in the long term to raise the retirement age to almost 70 years. However, at the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) this initiative encounters rejection. "Even the pension at 67 was a mistake," said DGB board member Annelie Buntenbach the "New Osnabrück newspaper. Even today, many older workers would not reach the statutory retirement age.
"They often become unemployed or chronically ill beforehand and save themselves, after receiving unemployment benefits I and II or sick pay, only with difficulty in an early retirement pension with discounts," said Buntenbach. "Those who do not reach this saving shore fall mostly into the Hartz IV regime and as a result often in poverty of old."
The rising average age of the population also say nothing about the individual life expectancy of the working people. "Because who works hard, has a higher mortality risk than the average of all gainfully employed," said Buntenbach. "So if you raise the retirement age, all of these people will freeze their pension.
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The employers' organization BDA, however, sees the proposal of the Bundesbank positive. "The life expectancy gained must also lead to a longer employment phase and not only mean an ever longer retirement," said BDA CEO Steffen Kampeter. The way there is secondary: "An indexation of the statutory retirement age is just as conceivable as a gradual statutory increase."
Also FDP Vice-fraction leader Michael Theurer welcomed the demand of the Bundesbank. It was "an important impetus in the debate on intergenerational fairness," he told the editorial network Germany. "A flexible retirement age would correct the large-scale coalition's failure to lower retirement age." Otherwise, the pension-financed pension will soon reach its limits.
To meet the demographic challenges, the Bundesbank had proposed raising the retirement age to over 69 over the long term. The retirement age should therefore be linked to the increasing life expectancy and be raised after 2030 so that "the relation of pension to contribution years remains approximately stable". The retirement age would have to rise to the year 2070 to 69 years and four months. This would be based on the Bundesbank proposal in 2001 born.
Currently, it is planned that the statutory retirement age will increase to 67 years by 2031. The official forecasts for the pension will end in 2032. But life expectancy has continued to rise and is estimated to continue to increase in the future. An expert commission of the Federal Government should submit recommendations on the future of the pension by March 2020.