Left lying video about retirement age 67 is not an isolated case

Can you lie in a voting campaign? In a video about the AHV reform, which will be voted on September 25, the left-wing opponents of the bill make an unfounded claim: Parliament is said to have already decided that if the current bill is yes, the next step will be the retirement age for to increase all to 67 years. This is clearly wrong. The video was produced by the Swiss Confederation of Trade Unions, and it is defended and distributed by the SP, among others.

The opponents are also relying on disinformation in the official voting booklet that has been sent out these days. Here, the referendum committee claims that if the vote is yes, the next “dismantling step” will come in 2026. That’s what Parliament decided.

The only thing Parliament has really decided on this is a advance. It consists of a single sentence that leaves everything open in terms of content: “The Federal Council is instructed to submit a proposal to Parliament by December 31, 2026 to stabilize the AHV for the period from 2030 to 2040.”

How can one derive a “dismantling step” from this with a clear conscience, which should also already have been decided?

And the fairy tale goes on. In the next sentence in the voting booklet, the opponents write: “If ‘AHV 21’ is accepted, the retirement age is 67 programmed.” This statement also misses reality. The word retirement age is not even mentioned in the proposal. Of course, there are middle-class parliamentarians who would like to introduce the retirement age of 67 with the next reform. But it is wrong that the majority of the National Council and Council of States decided to take such a step.

“Solid”, “reliable” – and soon in debt?

In the voting campaign for the AHV, the left is leaning very far out of the window. The statements about the retirement age of 67 are not the only example. Another fundamentally concerns the question of the need for reform of the social security system. Until recently, it was practically undisputed from left to right that politicians must act quickly to ensure the social security system’s ability to pay. But now, in the voting campaign, the opponents primarily hear other, reassuring slogans à la “The AHV is solid and reliable.”

The co-president of the SP, Cédric Wermuth, is now going one step further. He posted this message on Twitter: «‹The AHV is financially sound. Despite this, Parliament wants to raise the retirement age for women by one year and raise VAT. If yes, women and consumers pay.’ There is actually nothing more to add to this conclusion of the ‘K-Tipp’.»

The message is clear: you can confidently reject the AHV reform, the social work is doing well, unpleasant measures are unnecessary. Wermuth is not the only one who refers to the consumer magazine “K-Tipp”, which has been denying the problems of AHV for years. SP National Councilor Fabian Molina presented a “K-Tipp” contribution to the audience at a panel discussion in Zurich this week to demonstrate how well the AHV is doing.

Suddenly they think the “K-Tip” is great

If there wasn’t so much at stake, you could laugh at the irony: it was only five years ago that the left and the “K-Tipp” had a heated argument about the same thing. Switzerland last voted on a pension reform in September 2017. It was a centre-left project that narrowly passed Parliament but failed in front of the people. The SVP and FDP rejected the proposal because it provided for an AHV expansion. SP, Mitte, Greens and unions fought vehemently for it.

Not so the «K-Tipp». Even then he wrote in full force against the proposal, much to the annoyance of the red-green camp. An example is an intervention from the summer of 2017, in which the trade union federation denounced “massive false statements”: “Are the ‹K-Tipp› simply badly informed, or are you running an unfair campaign against the pension reform?”

At the time, it was clear to the left that reform was urgently needed. Shortly before the vote, SP Councilor Anita Fetz wrote: “If you vote no to the pension reform, huge deficits will accumulate year after year.” She argued in exactly the same way as the bourgeoisie do today: “The large baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age. The demographic clock is ticking.” According to Fetz, there is an imbalance. “If we don’t act now, the AHV will write deficits in the billions in a few years.”

No “fools” at the federal level

The need for funding was also not disputed in the official statements from the red-green camp. The SP warned that if the answer was no, the AHV would quickly slip into the “red numbers”. The trade union federation feared “debt economy” and a “dictate of the empty coffers”. As if it were the most normal thing in the world, they relied on the forecasts of the Federal Social Insurance Office (BSV). Cédric Wermuth himself hit the official numbers around the eyes of “Blick” when it published an unwelcome article about the template.

In general, the Federal Office enjoyed an unusually large amount of affection from the left at the time. The fact that earlier AHV forecasts were in fact mostly too pessimistic was suddenly no longer so bad for the SP: “Since we can assume that the BSV does not employ any fools, the conclusion is that long-term forecasts for AHV are more difficult to make than is commonly assumed .»

Completely different today. The official predictions? «Black painting!» «Fear scenarios!» The president of the trade union federation, Pierre-Yves Maillard, launched a particularly violent attack on the office and the Federal Council in August.

Back in the black thanks to a cash injection

This, too, is ironic: Compared to the past, the federal government’s AHV forecasts are now much more reliable. The forecasts have been amazingly precise since the office adjusted key figures on immigration and other factors in 2011. Only the corona pandemic caused larger deviations, because the economy recovered much faster than expected.

The question remains who is right: the left of 2017 or the left of 2022? Is the AHV “sound as a fiddle” and “solid” – or is there a risk of a “debt economy” without reform?

Nothing has changed fundamentally since 2017. The AHV has only gained some time thanks to the “tax-AHV deal” from 2019: it provided a financial injection of a good 2 billion francs a year. The money comes from the employed (salary deductions) and from the federal treasury. It is only thanks to this additional income that the decisive parameter, the levy result, has been positive again since 2020. Previously, it was negative for six years in a row.

However, it was always clear that these 2 billion will only be sufficient in the very short term. AHV expenditure is growing significantly faster: in the next ten years alone, it is likely to increase from CHF 48 billion to CHF 63 billion a year. There is hardly any doubt about this increase, because the predictions of the BSV are particularly accurate when it comes to expenditure. In addition to increasing life expectancy, the main reason for the strong increase is the retirement of the baby boom generation. The left has repeatedly pointed this out in the referendum campaign itself – of course in that of 2017.

Tipping point 2025

The AHV allocation results are currently positive. It should stay that way until 2024; after that, according to today’s forecasts, expenditure should exceed income if the people reject the reform. The gaps would then grow rapidly, and in 2032 a deficit of CHF 4.7 billion would be expected in the levy.

And if the left is right in its campaign today? What if the forecasts are actually «black painting»? Then the red-green camp could actually look relaxed into the future. In this case, Parliament will hardly feel like presenting a “dismantling proposal” to the people as the next AHV reform. Your chances would be close to zero. As long as the AHV is “in good health”, the retirement age of 67 in this country should only exist in videos made by trade unionists.