Women are particularly affected
Millions of pensioners don’t have 1,250 euros left
January 21, 2024, 10:57 a.m
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7.5 million pensioners currently have to get by on less than 1,250 euros a month. That’s not enough, complains left-wing politician Bartsch and calls for a significant increase in the statutory pension.
More than 40 percent of German pensioners have a net income of less than 1,250 euros per month. This emerges from a calculation by the Federal Statistical Office at the request of the left-wing MP Dietmar Bartsch, which is available to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). Roughly one in four pension recipients receives less than 1,000 euros. Women are particularly affected.
However, the German Pension Insurance (DRV) pointed out that the statistics have “only limited significance with regard to the income situation of pensioners”. There is often income from other sources, such as company pensions, survivors’ benefits or other benefits. “The income situation can therefore only be determined in the household context,” it said.
As the special analysis of federal statistics shows, 7.5 million pensioners in this country have a monthly income of less than 1,250 euros. That is 42.3 percent of all pension recipients in Germany. 5.3 million of them are women, which corresponds to 53.5 percent of all German pensioners. That means: More than every second pensioner receives less than 1,250 euros per month. For men it is 28.2 percent.
According to the data, 26.4 percent of German pensioners, i.e. around one in four, receive less than 1,000 euros in personal net income. Among women, 36.2 percent do not come up with 1,000 euros a month, while among men it is 13.9 percent.
Big difference between men and women
The figures also show that pensioners live disproportionately on low incomes compared to the rest of the population: 42.3 percent of pensioners have less than 1,250 euros net, while the proportion of the rest of the population is 31 percent. According to the German Pension Insurance Pension Atlas 2023, the average gross pension in 2022 after at least 35 years of insurance in this country was 1,728 euros for men and 1,316 euros for women.
In view of the figures, left-wing politician Bartsch spoke of a “declaration of poverty for our country”: “Pensioners are the main losers from inflation,” he told the RND. “In 2024 they are threatened with real loss of purchasing power for the fourth year in a row.” Bartsch sees the federal government as responsible: “The pension increases in recent years were too small to compensate for the current price jumps,” he said. “We need a one-off and additional pension increase of ten percent this year to at least compensate for inflation.”