A few days ago, the former television presenter Harald Schmidt caused astonishment in an interview with the dpa news agency on the occasion of his 65th birthday.
Because there Schmidt said he would get a mini state pension of just 272 euros.
And that despite the fact that he had "fully paid for 15 years" through his work at the theater and for ZDF.
He definitely wants to have this pension: "I'll collect it, too, I've paid in, I'm entitled to it.
That's not charity, that's a deal I made with the state.
Bring it on!"
To many, 272 euros for 15 years of work and a man like Schmidt seemed very modest.
Apparently the Federal Association of Pension Advisors thought so too and did the math again.
The moderator's "pension fate" is a good reason to fulfill his own task, which consists of "educating and informing the public about the relevant social code books, social security law and the other systems of old-age insurance," the association wrote on its website.
And so he then unraveled exactly how the pension is actually calculated and what that actually means in the case of a man like Harald Schmidt.
The result is less surprising than the starting point: 272 euros cannot be right.
The moderator should actually get 1,080.60 euros, said the association.
Recalculation can obviously be worthwhile.