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Hubertus Heil (SPD) in Berlin
Photo: Michele Tantussi / Getty Images
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) has promised a permanent guarantee of a pension level of 48 percent for the draft pension package II.
“We have now secured this until 2039, but it is written in the law that it should be this way permanently,” explained the minister on Thursday evening on the ZDF program “Maybrit Illner”.
In concrete terms, this means: Anyone who has had an average income for 45 years and dutifully paid into the pension fund will receive a monthly pension of 48 percent of the average employee's income.
Anyone who has deposited less time or smaller sums will get less out of it.
Whoever has deposited more, correspondingly more.
SPIEGEL columnist Hermann-Josef Tenhagen explains what this means in concrete terms: The pension, which is based on an average income, is currently 1,600 euros per month.
From these 1,600 euros, health and nursing care insurance contributions are deducted - "and a few euros in taxes too."
SPIEGEL columnist Tenhagen's conclusion on the federal government's pension reform is: "Nobody has to fear that there will no longer be a decent pension in the future.
But no one should imagine that the standard of living can be secured with the statutory pension.
Labor Minister Heil put it more flowerily on Maybrit Illner's talk show: "We will strengthen the statutory pension by stabilizing the pension level," said Heil.
This was firmly agreed with Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP).
Heil described the loan-financed “generational capital” proposed by Lindner as a good compromise.
It is a sovereign wealth fund that the federal government fills with loans and whose income will flow to the pension insurance from the mid-1930s.
The Minister of Labor rejected the financing of generational capital from pension contributions.
vet/Reuters