As of: March 9, 2024, 6:00 p.m
By: Amy Walker
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The pensions of people with reduced earning capacity are set to rise sharply on July 1st.
But the pension insurance company is unable to calculate the surcharges in a timely manner due to personnel reasons.
Berlin – A significant increase in disability pensions is being planned for around three million pensioners this summer.
This particularly applies to those whose retirement dates were between January 2002 and June 2014.
You can expect an increase of 7.5 percent.
For those whose pensions began between July 2014 and December 2018, an increase of 4.5 percent is planned.
But as the pension insurance company had to announce at the end of February, the adjustment of the pensions is not working quite as planned.
The social association VdK reacts with sharp criticism and speaks of a “fiasco” for pension insurance.
Higher pensions will only be paid out correctly later
In a communication on February 27, 2024, the German pension insurance wrote: “Due to the very complex technical implementation, the calculation and payment of the surcharge should take place in two stages.”
The first of these should come as planned in July 2024, “separately from the current pension [at] the middle of the month”.
The second payment stage is not scheduled to come until December 2025.
So: In July 2024, those affected will receive a surcharge, but this is only a kind of emergency solution and is not based on the correct calculation.
It may be that some people will be entitled to more money retroactively in December.
“From July 1st, pensioners will be paid a subsidy that is easily calculated and of a comparable amount.
The DRV will only be able to pay out the appropriate surcharge to those affected on December 1, 2025.
It will then also be checked whether the simple surcharge was too low and needs to be compensated retroactively,” says a statement from the VdK.
This is “a fiasco for the administration of pension insurance and shows that there is a lot wrong in the area of digitalization and human resources,” continued Vdk chairwoman Verena Bentele.
There will soon be more money for people with disabilities.
© IMAGO
The pension insurance assures: “The law is designed to ensure that everyone entitled to the supplement gets what they are entitled to.
It is currently still in the ongoing legislative process.”
New law should make pensioners better off
But what are eligible pensioners actually entitled to?
Specifically, the new law is about improving disability pensions and widow's pensions for seniors who have been neglected in the past.
In 2014 and 2019, these pensioners were already better off - but the new regulations only ever applied to new pensioners.
The new law is intended to iron out this inequality and also support pensioners who received a pension before 2014.
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The good news for pensioners is: There will definitely be more money in July 2024.
As a result of the new regulation, the federal government expects additional expenditure of 1.3 billion euros in 2024, and costs of 2.6 billion euros in 2025.