Linke speaks of poverty
West pension significantly higher after 40 insurance years
4/16/2022 6:54 am
After 40 years of insurance, people in western Germany receive an average of twelve percent more pension than people in eastern Germany. The left criticizes the very large low-wage sector in Germany and refers to Austria, where pensions are significantly higher.
Statutory pensions are significantly lower in the East than in the West for the same insurance periods. In 2020, the average payment amount in the eastern federal states was 1252 euros per month after at least 40 years of insurance. In the west it was 1428 euros. Nationwide, the average was 1371 euros. The Ministry of Social Affairs called the numbers in response to a request from the left in the Bundestag.
The left-east representative Sören Pellmann criticized both the nationwide average and the difference between East and West. “Twelve percent less pensions in the East with the same lifetime performance: These are unacceptable differences,” said the Leipzig MP. “But the nationwide numbers are devastating. 1,371 euros on average for pensioners who can show 40 years of insurance is a sign of poverty in German pension policy.”
Insurance years are the entire time that you were in the statutory pension insurance system – i.e. also years in which insured persons do not pay any contributions, for example due to unemployment. Such times might explain some of the differences between East and West. Lower wages also play a role. Pellmann said: “The pension gap between East and West is also the result of the huge low-wage sector in East Germany and decades of wrong labor market policies.”
East Germans work longer
However, it should be noted that the figures only refer to a direct comparison based on 40 years of insurance. Because many in the east have more years of service than in the west, the actual average payouts are higher in the east than in the west. Calculated on all pensioners in the portfolio at the end of 2020, they were 1179 euros for men in the west and 1249 in the east. For women it was 741 euros (west) to 1065 euros (east). This is the result of figures from the statutory pension insurance system.
Pellmann complained about the statutory pension level as a whole. “In Austria, the average pension is 800 euros higher than in this country, the pension level in the entire EU is about ten percent higher than here,” he emphasized. The traffic light must raise the pension level and pay out the energy money of 300 euros to pensioners.