“Stop immediately”
Employer president “stunned” by pension package
April 7, 2024, 3:56 a.m
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The head of the German pension insurance sees the coffers stable. Employer President Duldger, on the other hand, is sounding the alarm: The traffic light package is priceless and must be stopped immediately. According to a survey, the majority of citizens are also skeptical about the future.
Employer President Rainer Dulger vehemently warns against the federal government’s planned pension package II. Dulger told “Bild am Sonntag” that he was “stunned” that Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil “now wants to massively increase pension spending again, even though we are facing the biggest aging surge “that has ever existed in Germany”.
Pension package II would be the “most expensive social law of the century,” warned Dulger. The project must therefore be “stopped immediately”. It would be “unfair and unjust to spend 500 billion euros more on pensions over the next 20 years.” According to the report, the federal government expects pension spending of 802 billion euros in 2045 in the draft bill for the “Pension Level Stabilization and Generational Capital Act”.
The federal government wants to stabilize the pension level and at the same time slow down the expected increase in pension contributions. Labor Minister Heil and Finance Minister Christian Lindner presented a reform package at the beginning of March with which the pension level of 48 percent should also be guaranteed for the future. The pension level indicates what percentage of the current average wage someone who has always worked at the average wage for exactly 45 years receives as a pension.
German pension insurance: Are very well positioned
The President of the German Pension Insurance, Gundula Roßbach, is currently not worried about the development of pension costs. “The pension insurance is currently in a very good financial position,” she told “BamS”. Society has been aging not just today, but for decades. “So far we have succeeded in keeping the contribution rate stable, contrary to all forecasts,” emphasized Roßbach. According to Roßbach, Germany’s spending on pensions as a percentage of economic output is still below the EU average – in recent years mainly due to the increased employment of women.
From Roßbach’s point of view, a stable labor market and the immigration of additional workers are central elements in making the statutory pension crisis-proof for future generations. In order to have a “reliable pension”, “the contribution rate and also the federal subsidy for pension insurance would have to increase in the next few years”.
According to a representative survey by the opinion research institute Insa for “Bild am Sonntag”, 72 percent of German citizens do not believe that pensions in Germany are secure. 75 percent are also of the opinion that pensions in Germany are too low. According to the survey, 84 percent would like civil servants and freelancers to also have to pay into pension insurance.