Heil wants to delete the border
Early retirees should be allowed to earn unlimited additional income
08/26/2022 11:51 am
At the end of the year, special corona rules will also expire for early retirees: From 2023, they should only be able to earn an additional 6,300 euros without being credited. Actually. According to a report, Labor Minister Heil wants to completely abolish the additional earnings limit.
Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil apparently wants to remove the additional earnings limits for all employees who still work part-time after early retirement. According to a report in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ), this emerges from a draft by the Ministry of Labour. The project is therefore to be decided shortly by the Federal Cabinet together with other social law changes.
So far, pensioners can only work part-time without restrictions after reaching the regular retirement age. Anyone who earns a wage in addition to an early pension must fear a reduction or even the loss of their entitlement to a pension. This also applies, for example, to those drawing a pension from the age of 63 for those who have been insured for many years. According to the current legal situation, from 2023 onwards only an additional income of 6300 euros per year would be exempt from deduction.
“The additional earnings limit for early retirement pensions is no longer applicable,” the FAZ now quotes from the ministry’s submission. In these cases, “there will no longer be any restrictions on additional earnings”. In addition, it is planned to increase the limits for additional earnings for recipients of disability pensions, to a good 17,000 euros per year.
Vogel against rigid age limits
FDP parliamentary secretary Johannes Vogel welcomed the project in the FAZ as an important breakthrough towards a simple, unbureaucratic solution. “We cannot afford to do without these people and their wealth of experience,” he said. Anyone who wants to work more than previously thought after retirement can now do so without any worries. Vogel also sees the project as a step away from a rigid age limit that no longer fits the reality of millions of people.
For the years 2020 to 2022, the additional income limit was increased to a good 46,000 euros per year as part of a temporary special corona regulation. Without the planned change in the law, it would have automatically shrunk to 6,300 euros on January 1, 2023. In the coalition agreement, the Ampel parties had only agreed: “We want to spread the awareness of the Flexi-Rente through better advice and extend the regulation on additional income in the event of early retirement.”