Pension and pension
Do officials in retirement really get so much more than pensioners?
On average, the pensions are only half as high as the civil servants. But are such average numbers really solid? A look at the details helps with the assessment.
If you want to initiate a heated debate as possible about the amount of German pensions, then you just have to throw these numbers into the ring: 1240 euros get pensioners on average gross from their own pension insurance (i.e. without the survivor’s pension). On the other hand, 3240 euros receive on average officers in retirement. That is more than twice.
Is this difference fair? And if we are already discussing the reform of the legal pension, we don’t urgently have to talk about the pensions of civil servants?
At the latest at this point, a lot of officials have their say and point out that the comparison lags. Because civil servants would have to accept a number of deductions from their retirement salaries, among other things they made additional payments to private health insurance. In addition, legal pensioners often received company pensions or withdrawals from private pension contracts, which must also be included. Therefore, it is misleading atmosphere to only target the high civil servants. And in one you are undoubtedly right: Yes, the average numbers mentioned above are actually gross amounts.
Gross amounts do not draw the whole picture
Now it is like this: Since the individual taxes, taxes and social contributions in retirement age naturally differ significantly depending on the personal life situation, the actual net income is also not easy to determine. Especially not if you want to derive reliable average. However, it is available, for example in the Federal Government’s age security report from December 2024. It has listed quite exactly how the revenue of the retiree of this republic is. And one thing in advance: According to its numbers, the world does not look quite as dark for normal pensioners. But that of the officials still much rosier.
First of all about the location of the pensioners: Anyone who has worked for 45 years in this country and deserves exactly in the amount of the average income in every single year will get gross 1,769 euros “standard pension”, the German pension insurance has defined it. According to social contributions, however, there are 1565 euros of it after social contributions. However, since very few employees really get to 45 years of contributions, and in addition, especially in the early years, the income is still low, the average paid pensions for self -insured persons with just one pension (because many older people also also receive survivor’s pensions) is currently only 1240 euros gross. Anyone who has paid in a particularly long time, namely for 35 years, also comes to a slightly higher 1440 euros, also gross.
How much for pensioners there is a maximum of
And an exciting detail at this point: Even if you would have managed to earn your working life in the amount of the contribution ceiling, which is currently 96,000 euros, you would have gross a gross claims of EUR 3440. That would be 3025 euros net after life -long super earnings. With the best will in the world, there is nothing more in the legal system. It is less than the average civil servant pension, but more on that later.
Now the payments in pensions sprinkle very much, just between the sexes. While the men get an average of 1500 euros gross dent and 1223 euros net, the women are only 1000 euros gross and 830 euros net. But the differences between the better and bad earners are also huge. That is why the pure average numbers say little. If you look at the most common amounts among the nets, then two thirds of the men receive more than 1000 euros pension, 67 percent. And only 17 percent have to surrender with less than 700 euros. In contrast, 40 percent of women do not even have 700 euros available and only a third gets over 1000 euros pension a month. A short further third has to make do with 700 to 1000 euros. Only 7 percent of all male pensioners and 1 percent of all female pensions receive a pension of more than 2000 euros.
The statistics on civil servants say – also net according to taxes for health insurance, long -term care insurance and income tax: 46 percent of all men receive a pension of even over 3000 euros. And at least 16 percent of ex-officers. In contrast, only 4 percent of the civil servants have to make do with net ropes of 1000 to 1500 euros. Hardly any pensioner has as little available as the average of all legal pensioners. In contrast, half of the male officials and 65 percent of female are a net salary of 1500 to 3000 euros.
Better training leads to better retirement?
Anyone who now argues that civil servants are also employed more often in the upscale and higher service and thus trained better than the majority of workers and employees, the retirement security report: Even “if one takes into account the level of employment, there are still income advantages of the (former) civil servants.” At the same level of work, your net income is well above that of workers and employees. And according to the report, their retirement salaries are also: Middle Employees receive around 1850 euros pension, retired medium -sized officials 2840 euros. With the resting trains for upscale posts, it is 3250 euros for the employees of 4,200 euros for the officials.
The exciting question now is: do the additional income of the statutory pensioners equalize this gap? So the amounts that you receive from company pension schemes (BAV) and private pension contracts (PRV) such as life insurance or Riester contracts often do not have. Because the statutory pension only makes around 61 percent of all age income in pensioner households, which means that 40 percent are therefore dining from other sources.
However, only to small parts from BAV and PRV. Firstly, only a few pensioners are entitled to an additional company pension and secondly the payments from it are quite low. While 88 percent of the pensioners receive a payment from the statutory pension (and by the way, 9 percent from civil servants), only every third also receives a company pension. On average, men can also collect quite a lavish 535 euros, but for women it is only 237 euros. And private provision even pays the budget budget only in 7 percent of the population.
Employment in addition to the pension
However, there is still a larger item that has increased the age income considerably, but it comes from gainful employment. So pensioners improve their household budget by simply working on.
It is also true that people with very small legal pensions are often not so short of cash because they often live with a person who receives significantly higher pension income. At least that applies to the current generation of pensioners. The younger ones are more right: the same and immediately like, even with regard to work and income. Therefore, the retirement security report for various household constellations has determined the income: According to this, local retirement pairs – civil servants and non -officials – have an average of 3,795 euros. Men living alone have 2,200 euros available and alone lived, single women 1,833 euros, because they have often worked much more through their lives than married women.
In 2024, the employer -related institute of the German economy determined how far the pensioners and legal pensioners differ at the household level for an inflation study: While statutory pensioner households in median would have an available household income of 2,564 euros (every second household has more, the other half), be it with pensioner households in the median 5,309 euros. It’s pretty much twice as much.
Source: Stern
