As of: March 1, 2024, 7:07 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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Christian Lindner (l) and Hubertus Heil (r) sit in a plenary hall and talk to each other.
They want to get the pension package II underway.
(Archive image) © picture alliance/dpa |
Kay Nietfeld
Next week, the traffic light coalition wants to launch pension package II.
The employer-related German Economic Institute (IW) fears that pension contributions will rise significantly as a result.
Berlin - According to Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP), the federal government's pension package should come soon.
The package will be launched “in a few days,” said Lindner on Thursday (February 29).
However, there are now growing fears on the employer side that pension contributions could rise significantly if the pension level is stabilized as announced.
The pension level should be set out in the traffic light pension package II
The second pension package is intended to fix the pension level and introduce the so-called stock pension.
The pension level should not fall to less than 48 percent of average wages in the long term.
At the instigation of the FDP in particular, a capital stock is to be created with the help of new debt, with which a return is to be generated on the capital markets, which is intended to relieve the burden on pension insurance contributions from the mid-1930s.
The draft federal budget for 2024 provides for twelve billion euros in new debt.
A pension reform is also urgently needed: Due to demographic change, more and more pensioners are paying fewer and fewer contributions.
As a result, the pension system is coming under increasing financial pressure.
The budget of the Federal Ministry of Labor, which also includes the pension subsidy, is already by far the largest single item in the federal budget, said Lindner.
That is “not sustainable”.
IW researchers: Pension package II could increase contribution rates significantly
But there is already criticism of Pension Package II: The employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW) demands that the federal government should disclose how the project “actually affects numbers”.
The fear: By fixing the pension level at 48 percent by the end of the 2030s, pension contributions for working people could rise massively.
In its pension insurance report, the federal government actually envisaged a pension level of 45.4 percent in 2035 - with an increasing contribution rate of 21.1 percent, explain the IW researchers.
“What the new plans mean for contributors can be estimated with a simple rough calculation.
If expenses increase in the same proportion as the pension level, around 631 billion euros would be due in 2035 instead of the previously expected 597 billion euros - a gap of a good 34 billion euros," describes Jochen Pimpertz from the IW in a statement.
If, as is currently the case, contributors were to shoulder 77 percent of pension expenses and the federal government the remaining 23, then the contribution rate would rise - according to researchers, to 22.3 percent.
For comparison: This is currently 18.6 percent.
Anyone who works has even less net than gross.
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Stock pensions are intended to generate returns
The stock pension provided for in Pension Package II is actually intended to counteract this.
The aim is to generate enough returns from a capital stock on the capital market so that the contribution rate and entry age do not have to be increased, but the pension level does not have to be reduced.
The traffic light coalition certainly has this problem in mind - although it is impossible to predict how successful the stock pension will be.
The capital coverage of the statutory pension is therefore also viewed critically by social associations, among others.
Michaela Engelmeier, head of the German Social Association, said last year: “We don’t believe in the so-called stock pension because speculation on the stock market cannot lead to a reliable pension policy.”
With material from Reuters