Pension
Would it be useful if civil servants and the self -employed deposit to the pension fund?
A simulation calculation shows what the inclusion of civil servants and the self -employed would cause in the pension fund. Why this is not a patent recipe.
The Council of Experts has calculated it: If the self-employed people are entering the statutory pension insurance, “low but affordable effects” would show themselves in the 2030s. If the first of them retired, the relief dropped again. In 2080, however, the inclusion would have little positive effects. The pension fund could also be extended to future civil servants “in the short to medium term financially if only contributors are initially received, but no additional pensions are incurred”.
According to the simulation calculation, this would lead to lower contribution rates for all insured persons. “However, due to the long-term higher pension benefits, the positive effect on the contribution rate is expected to return again from the mid-2070s,” said the economy.
Tax funds for the pension fund
The expansion of the insured group is therefore not a patent recipe for the renovation of the pension fund. Especially since the state would probably pay the officials, like the public service employees, in addition to the normal pension. The pension was an average of 3240 euros per month in early 2023-more than twice as much as the statutory gross pension. The civil servants already cost the state over 53 billion euros annually.
The amount would not be eliminated, since today’s pensioners and active civil servants with a pension entitlement will live for many decades. Indirectly, civil servants and the self -employed still finance pension insurance: by the annual subsidy from tax funds in the amount of currently 116 billion euros.
This text first appeared in June 2024.
Published in Stern 23/2024
Source: Stern
