The Federal Minister of Finance does not rule out that in the long term pension contribution funds will also be invested in the capital market.
(Photo: IMAGO/photothek)
Berlin It was the socio-political prestige project of the Liberals in the 2021 federal election campaign – the share pension. However, in line with the FDP party conference, a representative survey by the opinion research institute Kantar Public on behalf of the IG Metall trade union now shows that a majority of citizens are skeptical about the idea. Even among the FDP supporters, the enthusiasm is not great.
The original idea of the share pension envisaged investing part of the contributions to the statutory pension insurance in the capital markets. But that went too far for the coalition partners SPD and Greens.
The traffic light coalition agreed to set up a new funded pillar under the umbrella of pension insurance. However, this “generational capital” should not be built up from pension contributions, but from taxes. According to the coalition agreement, ten billion euros are initially earmarked for this.
According to the Kantar survey, which was conducted among 1,017 eligible voters in early April, two-thirds (67 percent) of those surveyed were opposed to putting pension contributions into a funded pillar. At least 42 percent of FDP voters are skeptical about such a system change.
According to the survey, security and predictability when financing old-age provision is more important to citizens than a higher return associated with greater risk. IG Metall board member Hans-Jürgen Urban warns against allowing generational capital to become a precursor to the share pension originally envisaged.
Generation capital for Lindner is just the beginning
Investing additional funds from the state budget to stabilize pension contributions in a fund is one thing, says Urban. “Red lines are crossed, however, when speculation is made with pension contributions and pension payments depend on investment success.” Verdi boss Frank Werneke had previously made a similar statement to the Handelsblatt.
“Red lines are crossed when speculation is made with pension contributions and pension payments depend on investment success.”
(Photo: IG Metall)
Finance Minister and FDP leader Christian Lindner has made it clear several times that the ten billion euros for generational capital are just a start for him. He would like to put ten billion euros into the fund every year for 15 years and also post unused state property as a contribution in kind, so that a three-digit billion amount would be available by the end of the 2030s.
This funded pillar is intended to help stabilize pension insurance when the baby boomer cohorts with high birth rates begin to retire from the middle of this decade.
>> Read here: “Put more on shares” – Here the FDP Vice explains how the pension level could rise
In the federal election campaign, however, the FDP had promoted the more extensive model of a share pension based on the Swedish model. According to the party’s ideas, two percentage points of the regular pension insurance contribution of 18.6 percent, which is borne equally by employees and employers, should be invested in a long-term, opportunity-oriented and funded old-age provision.
Citizens have no confidence in Lindner’s pension competence
However, the SPD and the Greens are against withdrawing contributions from the statutory pension insurance system and instead investing them in shares and other securities. The contribution-financed pension should not be exposed to capital market risk, they argue.
On the other hand, Lindner has not yet said goodbye to the original idea. If the model of generational capital has proven itself at some point, there is nothing to prevent “contributors also investing in the future stability of the pension,” he said at the end of January on the ARD program “Report from Berlin”.
However, according to the Kantar survey, 74 percent of citizens have little trust in the Federal Minister of Finance when it comes to questions of pension policy. Of the FDP supporters, 61 percent are suspicious on this point.
More: “You have to be quite gullible”: Why the pension is no longer secure