2024-08-07 11:00:36
Many people continue to work even when they are officially retired. There are many reasons for this – one of them is a lack of money.
More than 1.3 million of the 18.6 million old-age pensioners in Germany work in addition. This is the result of a response from the federal government to a request from the Left in the Bundestag, which the Ippen Media Group reports on. The source is the statistics of the German pension insurance. According to this, as of December 31, 2022, a large proportion (1 million) of those who earned something in addition to their old-age pension worked in a mini-job. A good 300,000 old-age pensioners were employed in more than marginal employment.
In response to a similar request from the AfD in July, the federal government referred to a report by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). According to the report, enjoyment of work, a sense of meaning and contact with other people are important reasons for working in old age. Financial motives are mentioned much less frequently.
Left Party MP Matthias W. Birkwald called it “unbearable that pensions in Germany are so low on average that many pensioners are forced to continue working.” Among the 34 OECD countries, Germany ranks fourth from last in terms of the level of the net replacement rate of pensions. “That is a disgrace for such a rich country.”
Put simply, the net replacement rate shows what is left of the earned income in retirement. The following applies: the higher the rate, the better the relationship between previous earned income and pension. However, the net replacement rate is controversial for country comparisons because it is a model calculation for a fictitious average earner. It is therefore not possible to make statements about individual pension amounts.
According to the German Pension Insurance, after at least 35 years of insurance, old-age pensioners in Germany received an average pension of just under 1,400 euros in 2022. The amount is always individual and depends on earnings during working life and the corresponding payments into the pension fund. Read here how much you would have to earn for a 1,500 euro pension.
The Left also asked the federal government about the expected costs of the relief measures provided for in the growth initiative. The plan presented by the traffic light coalition at the beginning of July contains a number of financial incentives for people to continue working during retirement – such as the possibility of having employer pension contributions paid out directly (more on this here). However, the federal government was unable to provide any figures in its response.