Thursday December 30th 2021
Criticism from FPD and medium-sized companies
CSU wants more pensions for single parents
The CSU is expanding the group of people whose pensions are to be topped up with tax money: In addition to mothers, the “life performance” of single parents must also be taken into account. The FDP and the German middle class think little of it.
The CSU regional group in the Bundestag calls for more pensions for single parents. This emerges from a draft resolution for the meeting of the regional group next week in Berlin. “Single parents often have a double responsibility. Many work part-time and cut back on their earnings and thus also the acquisition of pension points,” says the paper. “We therefore want to introduce a single parent’s pension with surcharges on child-rearing times for the time as a single parent or single parent.” Claiming the single parent tax relief should serve as an indication that someone was a single parent for a certain period of time. According to the CSU idea, this should be financed from tax revenues.
At the same time, the CSU reiterates its call for an expansion of the so-called mother’s pension and for a fourth pillar of the pension: a generation fund into which the state pays 100 euros a month up to the age of 18. “A fair pension system includes the recognition of lifetime achievement. That is why we want to complete the maternal pension with the third pension point and demand special consideration of the benefits of single parents in the pension”, said state group leader Alexander Dobrindt of “Welt”. In addition, they rely on the principle of “making provisions earlier instead of working longer”.
FDP: “Better tackle previous pension promises”
The FDP, however, criticized the CSU proposal. The labor market and socio-political spokesman for the Bundestag parliamentary group, Pascal Kober, said: “Instead of ever new performance promises, the generation-appropriate and sustainable financing of the previous pension promises should first be tackled.” Above all, it is now necessary to use the return opportunities of the capital market for the long-term stability of the pension insurance and to set up a corresponding permanent fund, “which is professionally managed and globally invested by an independent public body private old-age provision reform investment opportunities with a view to better return opportunities. In addition, we must enable single parents to better combine family and work. “
The German middle class also rejected the single parent pension for financial reasons. “The CSU clearly likes to be more social than the left parties in the Bundestag,” said Hans-Jürgen Völz, chief economist of the Federal Association of Medium-Sized Enterprises (BVMW), the newspapers of the Funke media group. “In view of the financial challenges in the context of the corona pandemic, there is no money for the spending fireworks at the end of the year, especially no tax money, even if this is well justified from a socio-political perspective.” The move to the tough opposition banks should not automatically mean the end of the fiscal consolidation course, said Völz: “The designated CDU leader Friedrich Merz is well advised to keep the Union on this course.”