The pension boomers are coming
Baby boomers are pushing pension applications to their highest level
October 29, 2023, 2:06 p.m
They have been the age cohort with the highest birth rate since 1945: Now some baby boomers are approaching their 45th year of work – and are therefore entitled to an early and tax-free pension at 63. This means that the number of applications for this type of pension is increasing significantly.
The number of applications for a pension without deductions after 45 years of work rose sharply in the first nine months of 2023. By the end of September there had already been 245,289 new applications for the “pension at 63”, as the “Bild” newspaper reported, citing figures from the German pension insurance. That is 16.8 percent more than in the same period last year (210,062) and almost as many as in the whole of 2015.
According to the pension insurance, the increase is due, among other things, to the fact that more and more employees of the baby boomer generation are reaching retirement age, as the newspaper also reports. With the “Pension for those insured for particularly long years”, employees can retire without deductions after 45 years of work before the regular retirement age.
At the end of April there were already a total of 2.2 million users of this type of pension. Since those affected have worked for long hours, their pensions are particularly high, it was said. At the end of 2022, men would have received an average net pension of 1,728 (East: 1,431) euros, while for women it was 1,293 (East: 1,362) euros. The costs for this are currently 3.7 billion euros per month, as “Bild” reports.