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Seniors in Leipzig: Fierce debate about the future of retirement
Photo: T.Seeliger / imago images
An expert report bursts in the middle of the Bundestag election campaign and raises a fundamental social question: How can old-age security be secured for the coming generations of pensioners?
The proposal of an advisory body to the federal government to raise the retirement age to 68 is met with widespread political opposition.
Now Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil has another proposal ready to reduce the funding gap for old-age pensions.
He wants to include the self-employed in order to stabilize the pension funds.
"The more you pay in, the better for the stability of the pension fund," said the SPD politician in the ARD morning magazine.
"That is why I made a proposal to include the self-employed in the pension system."
In addition, higher minimum wages, better collective agreements and the ability to combine work and family led to more pension contributions.
"The statutory pension with a stable pension level and a stable retirement age with flexible transitions is the right one." He rejects a "pension at 68".
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier also assured that he had always been against raising the retirement age any further.
The increase to 67 years remains.
The scientific advisory board at the Federal Ministry of Economics has presented a concept that provides for an increase in the entry age to 68.
The independently working committee of experts had stated in its expertise that there was a threat of "sudden increase in financing problems in the statutory pension insurance from 2025".
The Advisory Board proposes to raise the retirement age to 68 by 2042.
It is currently being gradually increased to 67 years by 2029.
Axel Börsch-Supan was in charge of the report.
He said on Tuesday evening in the ZDF “heute journal” that, as with climate change, people have long shied away from taking the problems seriously.
Currently, 28 percent of the federal budget went into pension payments.
If nothing happens, the proportion could rise to half.
"Of course that doesn't go well," warned the director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich.
"Demographic change is just here," said Börsch-Supan.
"The system will blow our minds"
The economist Bernd Raffelhüschen even warned: "The pension system is on the verge of ruin." He told the "Bild" newspaper that the federal government could "now only choose between plague and cholera: Either it increases the contribution rates for the pension fund to almost 28 percent at. Or the federal subsidy has to grow enormously. ”Whatever the decision:“ In the end, the pension system will fly around our ears, ”said the economist from the University of Freiburg.
However, the director of the Institute for Macroeconomics and Business Cycle Research (IMK), Sebastian Dullien, sees no need for a current discussion about a higher retirement age. “I don't see why we should start talking about what will happen to the retirement age in the 2030s. Whether someone will be able to retire a month earlier or later in the 2030s, nobody needs to know today for planning security, ”Dullien told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Assumptions about the development of the population and pensions with a lead time of more than ten years have often turned out to be incorrect in the past.
The young group in the Union faction also turned against the expert proposal.
"Anyone who thinks they can save their pensions by just turning the age screw is wrong," said the chairman of the Young Group, Emmi Zeulner (CSU), to the Funke newspapers.
Zeulner accused the members of the Expert Council of being “not up to date”.
The idea that there is “a retirement age for everyone” is “completely out of date”.
Rather, more flexibility is needed here.
The world of work is becoming more and more different.
At the same time, the CSU politician urged a pension reform that would give the younger generation more security.
"The boys have to be able to believe again that they will get a pension one day." That will only be possible with a funded pension plan.
mmq / dpa / AFP