Correlation with life expectancy
Spahn proposes a model for retiring later
12/20/2022 1:13 a.m
If Chancellor Schulz is all right, retiring at 63 could become obsolete. The union is also working on a reform model. Group Vice Spahn explains how the age of entry should be increased: For every year of increased life expectancy, retirement must begin one month later.
In the debate about raising the retirement age, the union outlines its proposals. “We are getting old,” Jens Spahn, leader of the union faction, told Tagesspiegel. “The retirement age should be linked to future life expectancy. Live longer for each year, retire a month later.” Retiring at 63 was a big mistake by the Grand Coalition. According to the report, the CDU politician criticized, “Hundreds of thousands of skilled workers are missing for this reason alone.”
Trade union faction director Thorsten Frei and CDU MP Carsten Linenemann have previously spoken out in favor of linking working life to life expectancy. What’s new, however, is that Spahn outlines what the mechanism could look like: For every year of longer life expectancy, the retirement age will be pushed back by one month.
The pension debate has flared up again after Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke out in an interview in favor of more people already working until the applicable retirement age. The standard retirement age in Germany is gradually being raised from 65 to 67. However, more and more people benefit from a non-deductible pension at 63.
“SPD handles pension at 63”
At CSU, the debate initially sparked resistance. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has begun completing its pension scheme at the age of 63, Stefan Müller, the parliamentary director of the CSU in the German Bundestag, told Bild newspaper at the beginning of last week. But CDU leader Frederik Merz has offered Traffic Lights talks on a major reform of pension insurance for next year.
CDU is currently working on a new core program under the direction of Carsten Linnemann. The 45-year-old told Tagesspiegel: A nurse or a roofer cannot work until 67. You need support. “But if you’re still fit and still capable, you’ll have to work longer in the future.” “It was a mistake to retire at 63. The Social Democrats have to admit it,” he added. Not only the physically working people now stopped early, but also many of the management. The wrong people benefit from retiring at 63.
But for the SPD, this may be a long way off. Federal Employment Minister Hubertus Hill on Thursday rejected a further increase in the entry age to over 67. “Raising the retirement age to 69, 70 or 75 is wrong and unfair,” the SPD politician told the Rheinisch Post. Such a move “would mean a real reduction in pensions for the many people who cannot work for a long time.” In addition, increasing the entry age “will be at the expense of the younger generation, which retires after the baby boomers,” Hill continued. The traffic light government ruled that out in the coalition agreement. “In an international comparison, the statutory retirement age is already very high, which is 67 from 2031,” Hill told the newspaper.