As of: February 8, 2024, 9:44 a.m
By: Amy Walker
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The days of the so-called “retirement at 63” are probably numbered.
More and more politicians and economists are calling for an abolition of early retirement.
The finance minister is also one of them.
Berlin – “Retirement at 63” is and remains a controversial topic.
The German economy is struggling to find every single employee, but hundreds of thousands of people take early retirement every year.
Since 2014, people who have been with the statutory pension insurance for 45 years have had the opportunity to retire earlier without deductions - which many people do.
But this not only puts a strain on companies, which have to lose good employees as a result, but also on pension funds.
Accordingly, the debate about abolishing the regulation is becoming increasingly heated.
In addition to the economists, employers' president Rainer Dulger and the Prime Minister of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), are calling for this.
And the FDP is now also publicly demanding this, even if it is going against the wishes of its coalition partner SPD.
The background is a dispute over the question of how companies in Germany could be relieved.
The FDP would like to reduce taxes - but that would then have to lead to further budget cuts.
Lindner and the FDP consider retirement at 63 to be no longer appropriate
The FDP's budget politician, Otto Fricke, said in an interview with rbb24 Inforadio
on Monday morning (February 5th)
that all items in the budget would have to be reassessed in order to provide tax relief for companies in the future.
“Then you have to say, what things can you do without?
And then look at where social benefits are adjusted to what is necessary.
Where is the need really?” Fricke cited the pension at 63 as an example. The FDP’s stance here is that this is no longer up to date.
“But that doesn’t mean that those who have particularly hard jobs don’t get a special arrangement,” says Fricke.
It is unclear what Fricke thinks these hard jobs would entail.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) also agrees.
During a speech at the Übersee Club in Hamburg, which was reported on by the
Bild
newspaper, he criticized the “paradoxical” fact that highly qualified people were allowed to retire early even though they could still continue working.
This is a “decommissioning bonus”.
And further: “We have to extend working lives,” he said.
What is “pension at 63”?
The discount-free old-age pension for those who have been insured for a particularly long time (45 years of insurance) is colloquially called “pension at 63”, but this term is misleading: the start of the pension depends not only on the period of insurance, but also on the year of birth.
This meant that everyone born before 1953 could retire at the age of 63 without any reductions.
But this no longer applies to all people born between 1953 and 1963.
The entry age gradually shifts upwards depending on the year of birth because the retirement age is gradually increased.
If you were born in 1964 or later, you can only retire without deductions from the age of 65 after 45 years
Lindner and his FDP are clearly positioning themselves against their coalition partners, the SPD and the Greens, who predominantly support keeping the pension at 63.
Labor and Social Affairs Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) made it clear again in January that there would be no end to early retirement with him.
“There is no longer any pension at 63, the entry age for those who have been insured for a particularly long time is over 64 and will rise to 65,” he said.
“Anyone who has worked for 45 years has the right to retire earlier without deductions.
“I won’t be able to retire at 70, as many conservatives want,” said Heil.
And Green Party leader Ricarda Lang also called early retirement
an “expression of respect for a person’s life’s work” in an interview with the
Berliner Morgenpost .
Christian Lindner believes that retirement at 63 is no longer appropriate.
© Michael Kappeler/dpa
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Last year, the number of applications for a pension without deductions after 45 years of work rose to a record level.
As the
Bild newspaper
reported at the end of October (October 28, 2023), citing the German pension insurance, there had already been a good 245,000 applications for the tax-free pension from the age of 63 by the end of September 2023 - around 17 percent more at the same time last year.