Pension: Millions of retirees receive less than 1200 euros - despite decades of work
Created: 02/21/2022 10:23 am
Millions of people in Germany receive a pension of less than 1200 euros a month, despite working for decades.
(Iconic image) © Michael Gstettenbauer/Imago
Almost 2.7 million pensioners receive less than 1,200 euros in pensions - even though they have paid into the pension fund for at least 40 years.
Berlin – Almost 2.7 million pensioners with at least 40 years of insurance receive less than 1200 euros in pension* per month.
That is 38 percent of those who have correspondingly long insurance periods, according to the editorial network Germany (RND) from the government response to a request from the left.
According to this, around 1.2 million pensioners with at least 45 years of insurance are among the 2.7 million.
Low pension: East more affected
The differences between East and West are also striking, it said.
In the west, with at least 40 years of insurance, about every third person stays under 1200 euros, in the east it affects every second person in this group.
The figures correspond to the status of December 31, 2020, according to the federal government there are no figures for 2021 yet.
"If 40 years of insurance do not protect against poverty in old age, we have a system error in the pension," said Dietmar Bartsch, the leader of the left-wing parliamentary group, to the RND.
"The numbers are the result of decades of misguided labor market and pension policies," he added.
"East Germany threatens to become a mini-pension country." A lifetime's work must be worth significantly more in the statutory pension.
"No one should fall below 1200 euros pension with 40 years of insurance*", demanded Bartsch.
Low pension despite full-time: social association calls for measures
The proportion of full-time employees who later have to reckon with a low pension is apparently high.
After 45 years of work, every third employee ends up with a gross pension of less than 1,300 euros, according to a response from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a question from the Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
This is available to the Evangelical Press Service (epd).
According to the information, around 21.45 million people were registered in Germany in full-time employment subject to social security contributions as of December 30, 2020.
Of these, around seven million have to calculate with a pension of less than 1,300 euros.
The president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, called for measures from the federal government in view of the numbers.
The minimum pension level needs to be increased to “well over 50 percent” and a higher minimum wage of at least 13 euros, she told the “Tagesspiegel”: “If so many people get old age pensions* after a long full-time job that are hardly higher than social assistance , ask yourself why you should pay in at all.”
(dpa)
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