As of: March 6, 2024, 11:37 a.m
By: Bona Hyun
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The traffic light ministers Heil and Lindner have presented their new pension package.
© IMAGO/Bernd Elmenthaler
The traffic light coalition is considering stock pensions as a further source of finance for pension funds.
Contribution payers should be relieved of the burden.
What does that mean specifically?
Berlin – For many young people, retirement is still a long way away.
Nevertheless, the traffic light coalition wants to decide how much the young people have to pay into their pension fund.
At the same time, those paying contributions should be relieved.
Christian Lindner (FDP) in particular relies on stock pensions (“generational capital”).
There is now criticism of this.
Pension for younger people: Lindner is focusing on a stock pension project that is close to his heart
For working people, the pension plans from Lindner and Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) mean higher wage deductions: the monthly contribution that employees and employers pay into the pension fund will increase.
They should remain at 18.6 percent until 2025.
An increase to 22.3 percent is planned from 2035.
In the future, employees will have significantly less net of their gross.
To ensure that pension contributions do not become completely unaffordable in the coming decades, the government is relying on stock pensions.
This stipulates that the state takes out loans in order to then invest them in the financial markets.
Stock pension as relief?
Profits will flow into the pension funds from 2036
The profit should flow into the pension fund from 2036.
A capital stock of 200 billion euros is to be accumulated from federal debt by 2036.
This should enable annual distributions to the pension insurance company of ten billion euros by investing in stocks and funds.
From 2024 onwards, the federal government will pay a double-digit billion amount annually as a loan into a newly established foundation, which is called “generational capital”.
In 2024 it will be twelve billion euros.
The amount will be increased by three percent annually in subsequent years.
According to the draft law, in 2025 it would be 12.4 billion euros and in 2045 it would be 22.3 billion euros.
In addition, the federal government wants to contribute a total of 15 billion euros from its own resources by 2028 - for example through the transfer of assets such as company investments.
Criticism of generational capital: doubts about traffic light plans
But there are already doubts as to whether these plans will work.
The German pension insurance reacted skeptically to the traffic light plans and wants to exclude risks for contributors.
In the future, no contribution funds should be used for generation capital, demanded the President of the German Pension Insurance Association, Gundula Roßbach, in Berlin on Wednesday (March 6th).
“Whether the contribution rate can be stabilized with the generation capital depends on whether the expectations with regard to investment income are met,” said Roßbach.
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The lobby group Association of Taxpayers also questioned the effect of the planned stock pension.
From the point of view of the President of the Taxpayers' Association, Reiner Holznagel, "more adjustment screws in favor of pension insurance" should be used - Holznagel told the
Editorial Network Germany (RND)
.
Holznagel questioned whether “debt-financed generational capital could actually reduce contributions for employees and companies.”
New pension package: Traffic light government wants to guarantee a pension level of 48 percent
The law also stipulates that the current pension value will be adjusted annually, as before.
According to the draft, the following is now added: “The security level before taxes should not fall below 48 percent.” The pensions will be increased every year to the extent that this minimum value is reached.
By 2039 and beyond, the pension level should not fall below 48 percent of average income.
This was welcomed by the pension insurance company: “Stabilizing the pension level at 48 percent beyond 2025 until 2039 can help to strengthen trust in the statutory pension insurance by defining a reliable security goal,” writes Roßbach in a statement.
However, Roßbach pointed out the possible increase in contribution rates: "However, the contribution target previously provided for in the double holding line, which was intended to avoid excessive demands on contributors, will be abandoned." (bohy with agencies)