As of: February 28, 2024, 2:42 p.m
By: Amy Walker
Comments
Press
Split
Both the pension fund and the federal budget are under financial pressure.
Pensioners should actually get a raise in the summer.
An economist thinks this is a mistake.
Update from February 28th, 2:35 p.m.:
The SPD has sharply rejected calls for a zero round of pensions.
“There will be no pension cuts with us, it is also a question of respect for the lifetime achievements of everyone who has worked hard for many years,” said SPD parliamentary group vice-president Dagmar Schmidt to the newspapers of the
Funke
media group.
But this is exactly what the zero round previously proposed by pension expert Bernd Raffelhüschen would mean.
In uncertain times like these, people need social security.
The welfare state is the guarantee for this, emphasized Schmidt.
“De facto, the zero round for pensioners demanded by Professor Raffelhüschen, who, among other things, works as a lobbyist for the New Social Market Economy Initiative, would mean a pension cut,” added the SPD politician.
She referred to the loss of purchasing power due to inflation.
Schmidt reiterated that the SPD wanted to secure the pension level of at least 48 percent in the long term.
Pensions would have to continue to rise with wages so that pensioners could participate in economic development.
“The annual pension adjustment is not a handout, but a firmly established social right that cannot be changed,” the Bundestag parliamentary group deputy made clear.
First report from February 28th, 9:24 a.m.:
Berlin – Like every year, the statutory pension is set to increase again in 2024 from July.
According to a current forecast by the federal government, there should be 3.5 percent more - but this value has not yet been finalized.
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) has so far only promised that pensions will rise above the level of inflation again.
The new pension values will be announced at the end of March.
Economist calls for zero pensions in 2024
But the pension fund is increasingly strained, the contributions of the insured can no longer cover all pensioners - there are simply too many.
Accordingly, the federal government is topping up the statutory pension insurance with a subsidy;
In 2024, 127 billion euros are earmarked for this.
And this at a time when the finance minister has called for savings.
Accordingly, suggestions have been coming from expert circles for weeks as to where the red pencil could be better applied in order to minimize expenses.
At the beginning of January, the chairwoman of the Federal Government's Advisory Council, Monika Schnitzer, called for the abolition of the mother's pension and "to renovate the railway instead".
Your colleagues on the Expert Council, such as Veronika Grimm and Martin Werding, have brought up the idea of abolishing the pension at 63: “Abolish the pension at 63!” Werding clearly told
Ippen.Media.
Now top economist Bernd Raffelhüschen is coming around the corner with a new proposal: “Germany has been expanding its welfare state for decades,” he told the
Bild
newspaper.
“That’s why it’s not a problem to save in the social sector.
For example, a pension moratorium would make sense: the pension increase for this year should be suspended.” This could save ten billion euros.
The Freiburg financial scientist Bernd Raffelhüschen is one of the country's leading economists © Patrick Seeger/dpa
Heil has already predicted a significant increase in pensions
It is almost certain that this proposal will be rejected by the government.
Social Minister Heil has already promised that “on July 1st pensions will again rise faster than inflation”.
Together with the traffic light coalition, he is committed to setting up the stock pension in order to secure the financing of the pension in the medium term.
In 2024, 12 billion euros are to be invested for this purpose, the returns from which will benefit the pension fund.
However, there are considerable doubts about this plan: The German Economic Institute in Cologne recently criticized the fact that too little was known about the returns.
According to their calculations, either the contributions or the federal subsidy would have to increase significantly in the coming years if the pension level is to remain at 48 percent.
But the government rejects both.
According to the first figures from the German Pension Insurance for 2023, average net pensions rose by 57 euros to 1,209 euros last year.
In the east, pensions increased by 5.86 percent and in the west the increase for pensioners was 4.39 percent.
Together with the increase in 2022, this represents an increase of eleven percent.
These figures include all pension payments from disability, old age and widow's pensions.