As of: March 5, 2024, 4:20 p.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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The federal government presents pension package II.
Despite promises of no pension cuts, the discussion about the retirement age remains open.
Berlin – Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) presented Pension Package II on Tuesday (March 5th). Above all, the federal government wants to avoid a decline in pension levels in the future.
“We will prevent that,” emphasized Heil in Berlin.
“There will be no pension cuts and no increase in the retirement age,” he added.
But is this really the end of the debate about the retirement age?
Lindner gave an interesting tip about this on Tuesday.
Lindner wants to think about longer working hours in the future
Heil had to admit that demographic developments will lead to an increase in pension contributions from the end of the decade.
This means that more and more pensioners are dependent on fewer and fewer contributors, who then have to pay more and more.
The government plans to counteract this trend with the new generation capital.
The income from the planned fund is intended to “stop the increase in contributions in the second half of the 1930s”.
“The pension system needs an update,” explained Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP).
The generation capital, which should include, among other things, stock investments, is “a new building block for statutory pension insurance”.
The government plans to pay twelve billion euros into the fund for 2024.
Lindner emphasized: “No baby boomer’s job should remain permanently vacant.”
But experts are already criticizing that this will not be enough - the pension system needs further fundamental reforms in order to withstand the coming financial burdens.
Lindner agrees: “Financing pensions is and remains an ongoing task,” he said, referring to demographic change.
Rentenreform.jpg © IMAGO/Bernd Elmenthaler
The finance minister demanded that working life should be extended, “but that should not be discussed and decided here and now.”
What the traffic light coalition is doing now “should have been done 20 years ago”.
But that also means: For Lindner, the discussion is far from over.
The FDP and the opposition Union are very critical of what is popularly known as the “pension at 63”.
There are increasing calls for the abolition of the pension at 63
More and more economists are calling for an increase in the retirement age and the abolition of the so-called “pension at 63”.
Economists are also becoming increasingly clear in their demands: pensions at the age of 63 should at least be restricted, recommended economist Veronika Grimm in advance of the presentation of the pension package.
“Early retirement without deductions should be possible if there are health reasons.” Currently, the pension at 63 creates an incentive for many people to retire earlier, whether with or without deductions.
“High earners in particular make use of it.
This exacerbates the shortage of skilled workers.”
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Grimm suggested linking the retirement age to life expectancy.
By 2031, the retirement age will rise to 67 anyway.
“After that, you would work eight months longer every ten years – in accordance with the predicted life expectancy,” she told the Funke newspapers.
“When you retire at 70, you’re still a long way from being there.”
The SPD, especially Minister Heil, is resisting this: “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 at the beginning of the year.
“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,” emphasized Heil.
Heil explained that incentives should be created so that people who are able to do so voluntarily work longer.
“We are now starting a dialogue with business and trade unions.
This means that the working conditions are so good that people don’t get sick.”