As of: February 29, 2024, 6:00 p.m
By: Amy Walker
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The traffic light coalition is not making any progress on pensions and there is no major pension reform.
More and more economists are criticizing this and warning about the consequences.
Berlin – The lack of reform of the statutory pension insurance is being criticized by an increasing number of economists and experts.
At the weekend there was clear criticism from the “economic wise man” Ulrike Malmendier, who in an interview with Die
Zeit
took issue with the blockade attitude of some traffic light government representatives.
“If something is not in the coalition agreement of the traffic light government, it is not happening at the moment.
[...] There are also people who make changes difficult,” says the economist, describing her collaboration with the traffic light government.
“The young generation will pay themselves to death”: Germany needs a new pension system
The traffic light coalition agreement explicitly states about pensions: “There will be no pension cuts and no increase in the statutory retirement age.
In order to secure this promise in a generation-appropriate way, we will be partially funded by the statutory pension insurance in order to stabilize the pension level and pension contribution rate in the long term. The stabilization of the pension level to 48 percent is to be achieved in the coming weeks with Pension Package II.
Part of this will then also be the share pension (generational capital).
The economist Ulrike Malmendier advocates pension reform (archive photo).
© IMAGO / IPON
From the point of view of economists, these plans are not sufficient to ensure the financing of the statutory pension insurance.
Ulrike Malmendier says in Die
Zeit
that many politicians in the government are not willing to reform, they are afraid of the risk: “They would rather stay with the pension system that we know - and that will lead us into the abyss because it “It will simply not be affordable because the younger generation will pay to death for the older generation.”
Economics: Retirement age must increase
In their most recent report for the federal government, the economists called for the retirement age to be raised and linked to life expectancy.
Martin Werding, leading pension expert and Malmendier's colleague on the Federal Government's Council of Experts, repeatedly emphasizes this necessity.
“If you now raise false expectations by saying that you never want to discuss the issue again
[increasing the retirement age, ed.
Red.]
Talking, you will inevitably have to disappoint people at some point," said economist Martin Werding to the newspapers of the
Funke media group
on Wednesday (February 21).
The statutory retirement age will gradually increase to 67 by 2031.
Anyone who wants to retire without deductions in 2024 must be 66 years old.
And the economist Bernd Raffelhüschen also told
Focus
on Wednesday: “We have to prevent what Federal Labor Minister Heil wants: that young people shoulder the burden.”
He called on the younger generation to get their parents on the side of the younger generation so that something can change politically.
Because: “The SPD is only acting in the interests of the elderly here.”
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The Ifo Institute also supports linking the retirement age to increasing life expectancy.
“Some of our neighboring countries have already decided this – the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland,” said pension expert Joachim Ragnitz from the Ifo Dresden branch in January.
In the Netherlands, for example, the rule applies: If people live three years longer, they have to work two years longer and get a year longer pension.
The ratio of pensioners to employed people would therefore remain stable at around 40 percent even after 2040 - and not rise to almost 50 percent, as currently forecast.