Even today, nobody is “forced to retire at the standard retirement age,” said the Greens pension expert Markus Kurth. And there are more and more employees who work longer hours.
As a reaction to demographic change and the shortage of skilled workers, there should also be a longer working life on a voluntary basis, Habeck said in an interview with the Handelsblatt: “One should be able to work flexibly longer. That would be a double benefit: anyone who wants to can contribute their knowledge, their skills and their experience for a longer period of time,” emphasized the Vice Chancellor.
Jochen Pimpertz, pension expert at the employer-related Institute of German Economics (IW) considers this to be the right approach. In view of the aging of the baby boomer generation, around two million retirees would have to be additionally insured by the end of this decade alone, while at least as many people in the labor force will be lost.
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Like Kurth, however, Pimpertz also points out that there have long been incentives for longer working hours in pension law. Anyone who works a year longer and, for example, only draws their pension in 2031 at the age of 68 instead of 67 will not only receive a higher pension because of the additional contribution paid. The economist calculates that if the pension is drawn a year later, the entire pension entitlement will be increased by six percent – and that for the entire pension period.
Existing regulations and additional incentives
The labor market and social policy spokesman for the Union faction, Stephan Stracke (CSU), also points to existing attractive regulations such as flexible pensions, which the grand coalition has implemented.
>> Read the interview with the Economics Minister here: Robert Habeck: The EEG levy is to be abolished as early as this summer
In view of the current level of interest rates, the pension surcharges that employees are already receiving for working longer are a good investment, said Stracke. “We could well imagine that these surcharges will be increased to make voluntary longer work even more attractive.”
IW economist Pimpertz, on the other hand, does not consider additional incentives to be necessary. “It would be much more important to eliminate incentives for early retirement, which are associated, for example, with early retirement without deductions for those who have been insured for particularly long years,” says Pimpertz.
Because the so-called pension at 63 continues to enjoy great popularity. In 2020, almost 257,000 women and men took the opportunity to retire early. This corresponded to almost a third of the retirement pensions in the year.
“Robert Habeck knows that we blocked all ideas of flexible retirement in the coalition negotiations with the SPD.”
(Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger for Handelsblatt)
According to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung, the average retirement age in Germany has risen in recent years – from 62.3 years at the turn of the millennium to 64.2 years in 2020. However, it is still below the standard retirement age, which will apply until 2031 67 years rises.
Abolish early retirement incentives?
Employer President Rainer Dulger therefore proposes to abolish early retirement incentives as an immediate measure. In the long term, however, an adjustment of the retirement age to the increasing life expectancy is also necessary, said Dulger of the German Press Agency (dpa): “With the demographic change, it is not possible to negotiate.”
Criticism came promptly from the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB): Today, anyone can stay in the job beyond the standard age limit, provided they are healthy, said board member Anja Piel of the dpa. However, the labor market is actually “walled up” for many older employees and there is a lack of age-appropriate jobs.
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Piel said: “Here the Federal Minister of Economics Habeck would be asked to make tough demands on employers so that older employees can still be hired and then be able to work healthy and under good conditions until they retire.”
It’s exactly the knee-jerk debates that Greens pension expert Kurth doesn’t like to see. That’s why he’s a bit angry with his party friend: “Robert Habeck knows that in the coalition negotiations, together with the SPD, we blocked all ideas for flexible retirement, insofar as they actually amount to pension cuts.”
Don’t lose trust
In its election program, the FDP had campaigned for extensive flexibility in retirement from the age of 60. Those who retire before the standard retirement age have to accept deductions, those who work longer receive a higher pension.
However, the SPD and the Greens had rejected such a retirement window because they fear disguised pension cuts for everyone who would like to work up to the standard retirement age but do not see themselves in a position to do so. In the coalition agreement, the traffic light parties had therefore only agreed to make the existing flexible pension better known.
In addition, a discussion is to be initiated together with the social partners “how wishes for a longer stay in working life can be realized more easily”. However, the situation of particularly stressed occupational groups should also be included.
From Kurth’s point of view, the Vice-Chancellor has not necessarily contributed to the objectivity of the debate: “If people now talk about a later retirement without thinking, we will lose the trust of the employees, who should actually see it as an opportunity.”
More on this: Compensate for pension deductions: Do you really have to work until 67?