Empty pension fund
We already had the pension at 70. Will she come back soon?
The holes in the pension fund in Germany grow, so the retirement age gradually increases to 67 years. And then? Will the pension come next at 70?
If you look a little deeper into the history books, you will find: the pension with 70, it has already been in Germany. When Chancellor Otto von Bismarck introduced the statutory pension insurance at the end of the 19th century, the age limit was 70 years. At that time, the pension at 70 meant great social policy progress.
Although the age references were not lavish in these early days and many did not reach the 70 at all. Nevertheless, the “Law regarding the Disability and Age Insurance” was the third elementary social law in the 1889 after the establishment of the accident insurance and the statutory health insurance. German Empire. And the foundation stone for the legal pension as we know it today.
In the meantime, however, the pension at 70 is a specter, because hardly anyone wants to work for that long. He or she – according to the current legal situation – does not have to. At the latest at the age of 67, you can currently retire. Some long -time or “particularly insured persons” can also retire earlier, and even a pension with 63 may be possible. Nobody has to work up to 70 at the moment, unless you want to improve the pension through additional earnings. However, there have been discussions again and again for years whether the retirement age does not have to be increased further.
Pension at 70: Who has to work for so long?
Currently, the retirement age increases by one or two months for each year that retires. When the 1964 year of birth retires in 2031, the process has been completed for the time being. The pension at 65 has finally become the pension at 67-as the legislator decided in 2007 in the “RV age limitation law”.
The reason for the decision to increase the retirement age to 67 was the demographic development that the pension fund threatens in two ways. On the one hand due to the increasing life expectancy and the associated longer pension reference. On the other hand, due to the upcoming pension of the particularly birth -strong vintages. The pension system puts both under pressure because fewer workers come up with more pension recipients.
These financing problems are also mitigated by the pension at 67, but not solved. Because the ratio of contributors to pensioners will continue to deteriorate in the coming years. And already today the pension is not financed by contributions, a large proportion comes from the federal budget, i.e. from tax revenues.
Some experts therefore see a solution in a further increase in retirement age, for example to 69 or even 70 years. Prominent economists have repeatedly challenged this, and this is always discussed in politics. But the idea also has bitter opponents, for example in the unions. The German Union Confederation emphasizes that the pension at 70 is not realistic because many people – especially in physically and mentally strenuous professions – could not work for so long.
Inevitably, a further increase in the retirement age is not. There would also be other ways to relieve the pension fund – but they also have all their problems. An unpopular alternative would be a lowering of the pension level or cuts in the early retirement. You could also simply increase the tax grants, but the money would then be missing elsewhere. The idea of a state equity pension has only recently become popular that some of the contributions will be invested on the capital market – however, this would bear fruits in the long term.
Source: Stern
