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Pension, but when?
Photo: Chris Emil Janßen / imago images
Now it is more or less official, the statutory pension in its current form turns the higher earners into richer pensioners, the poorer pay on it.
That is also in the controversial new study of the scientific advisory board of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
However, Minister Altmaier does not want to adopt its content at any point, after all, the scientists are seriously proposing a retirement age at 68.
For the year 2042, if life expectancy continues to increase as before.
Nevertheless, the study is illuminating.
But it is political in several ways:
The proposal was of course only made public after the election in Saxony-Anhalt; the study has actually been available since May 4th.
For the proposal, the scientists built a hermetically sealed experimental field.
They excluded major changes in pension policy for their model calculations.
Neither civil servants nor the self-employed should pay into the pension scheme in the future.
And a noteworthy migration, i.e. young men and women from abroad who want to work here and also help to finance our pension, is also ruled out by the scientists for their scenario.
Studies show, however, that such labor migration has a clearly positive effect on the pension fund.
But then there are only a few options left. Because the number of future retirees is already fixed and the number of future employees as well, only some can pay more or others get less. The year of birth 2012 (674,000 children), who will have to pay a substantial part of my pension, is about half the size of my age group in 1963 (1.356 million children).
If the employed are not supposed to pay the higher pension burden through the contributions, the bill can of course also be offset through taxes.
As early as 2019, over 100 billion euros in tax money flowed into the pension fund, in the Corona year 2020 it was a few billion more, well over 20 percent of the federal budget.
And when it comes to taxes, future government majorities can of course ask billionaires or motorists to pay more.
In any case, it has to be paid for from the wealth generated in this country.
And we old people get more of it.
Baby boomers make up the majority
Everyone born in 1990 or later should listen particularly carefully to the debate. Because the number of retirees is increasing and the number of employees is decreasing, the authors (understandably) plead for a kind of early armistice in the dispute between the generations. The longer the wait, the greater the number of retirees and the smaller the number of paying workers in the model. The average age of those eligible to vote was 52 as early as 2017.Since then, the number of young voters has decreased significantly and that of older voters has continued to increase.
In democracies like Germany, according to the logic of the study, young people will lose and have to pay extra.
So it is better to propose a comprehensible deal to the elderly now: Everyone should receive an average of only half as long a pension as he or she has paid in.
And because we are all getting older and older, we will retire at 68.
Address poverty in old age
The authors of the study also address one problem incidentally: poverty in old age.
In the current model, it would continue to increase.
And what is now undisputed and bitter: The pensioners with the high pensions will on average get more pension for every euro paid in than those with the small pensions.
That's because retirees have a higher life expectancy when they earn more.
To put it bluntly: The poor pensioners get a pension of around 15 years, while those with the particularly high pension get 25 years.
And this difference, the scientists write with reference to a recent study, is even increasing.
more on the subject
Study by the Institute for the German Economy: If even retirement at 68 is not enough
Pension reform: retire at 68?
The idea is more interesting than you thinkBy Florian Diekmann
Debate about old-age security: Heil wants to let the self-employed pay into the pension fund
One could fix this injustice quite easily.
Actually, we should give low-wage earners more pension points for their pension payments and thus ensure that they get a relatively higher pension.
Accordingly, high earners would get relatively less.
That's what the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Norwegians, and even the Americans do.
In the United States two decades ago, the poorest workers received 90 percent of their old earnings for their payments when they were old, and those with higher incomes only received 15 percent, according to the pension study.
In relative terms, poorer Americans still get significantly more from their pension funds, as the latest OECD comparison shows.
What you can do
From a purely statistical point of view, I am one of the beneficiaries of the previous model.
As a member of Ü55, I also have an interest in ensuring that we can later enjoy our retirement peacefully.
So here are two sets of suggestions for how we can get out of the somewhat tricky situation.
The Political:
Of course, after the federal election, governments will have to check whether and how
civil servants and the self-employed
will pay into the pension system in the future in order to make it more stable.
"Germany is one of the few OECD countries that has no compulsory pension insurance for all self-employed," says the OECD and speaks of gaps.
Germany is a
country of immigration
. That can help us with our retirement, we just have to want to take advantage of the opportunity offered by hundreds of thousands of young people without a German passport. The Italians have already officially calculated the benefits of migration for their pension funds. In this country, they should be even bigger, studies suggest.
Of course we can
pay
even more
tax money
into the system.
Twenty years ago a government introduced an ecological tax with the aim of doing this.
Today more than 20 billion euros are paid into the pension fund every year.
This fits particularly well because the SUV drivers and frequent flyers of the baby boomer generation finance their own pensions and maybe even consider how they do less harm to the planet.
The outcome of the current petrol price debate will show what the argument is worth.
And the personal ones - everything for everyone aged 55 and over:
As a precaution, however, if we are over 55 we should put one or two euros aside ourselves before retiring.
This can be a Riester contract or an index fund (ETF), a company pension, but also an investment in your own house.
If it's a house, think about your age in good time and invest while you're still at work:
Replace the heating before you retire so that your house uses less energy and is otherwise in top shape and does not drive you mad with rising energy and repair costs in your retirement.
The government is currently subsidizing the replacement of an oil heating system with a heat pump, wood pellet heating system or solar thermal energy with 45 percent.
The age-appropriate renovation of your apartment and house is also properly subsidized.
In addition, the state-owned KfW Bank also offers extra inexpensive loans.
Hold on to the job until 66 or 67 - at least part-time.
Then your statutory pension will not be reduced.
Retiring three years earlier often brings 100 to 150 euros less pension per month because nothing is paid in and then the pension entitlement is reduced.
Incidentally, millions of baby boomers have already taken this to heart in recent years; nowhere in the OECD has the number of 54 to 64-year-olds who are still working increased as in this country.
If you no longer buy a house, then use Riester and company pensions.
In a few years you won't be able to pay in that much, but of course you can take away a lot of funding.
Short-term Riester contracts for people over 60 are still possible until July 1 with Union Investment, the fund company of the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken.
You can also have small pensions paid out in one fell swoop from Riester, so you don't have to be very old.
Small Riester and company pensions are also not counted towards the basic security.
Pensioners on a tight budget are guaranteed to have the money in their pockets.
Or buy an inexpensive market-wide, international equity index fund (ETF).
Hopefully you have a long retirement ahead of you, during which the funds can develop well and gradually help ensure that there is always enough money in the coffers even at 80.
The 68 is not mandatory.
You can act.
I wish you success!
