For many, pension policy in Germany seems like a cemented, systematic treason of millions of people who have worked for decades, paid and trusted contributions, while a smaller group in civil service remains largely untouched and comfortable to secure. Behind all complicated formulas, paragraphs and technical terms is a simple, bitter experience: whoCarried risks in the private sector all his life, feared unemployment and often had to turn over every euro, lands much worse in old age than those whose pension is coupled to the last, usually highest salary.
Reduced pension level – stable pensions
The statutory pension level has fallen significantly in recent decades and is now only just under half the average wage with a politically deliberate trend. Further cuts are forecast for the coming years, although the number of retirees is increasing and life expectancy is high, while the pension level for civil servants in the area of GrobTwo-thirds to three quarters of the last gross salary remains. While pensioners have to be satisfied with a standard pension based on a lifelong average earnings, pensioners receive a share of the last, in the normal case, the highest service in their professional life. Long-term contributors in old age are nailed to the average of their working life, whileOfficials at an income summit glide into retirement, which many employees in the private sector are never reached.
Average salary against last top salary
The statutory pension is based on the average of the contributions paid over decades, often characterized by part-time phases, mini-jobs, illness, unemployment or industry changes. Every gap, every short phase with low wages eats into the later pension and permanently pushes the claim down. The pension in the public sector, on the other hand, is based on the last oneOr at a few last years of service, i.e. at the top of income development. Those who have made a career in civil service benefit to the maximum in old age, while the long-standing professional reality of employees in the private sector – with up and down, with uncertain phases and poorly paid years – affects the pension.
State security against existential risks
Civil servants enjoy a special employment relationship with practically unlimited job security, they cannot normally be terminated for operational reasons and are secured in crisis phases. Employees in the private sector, on the other hand, bear the full risk of economic fluctuations, operational imbalances, site closures, temporary contracts and industry upheavals – andEach of these crises leaves traces in the course of the pension. Anyone who becomes unemployed several times, is only employed for a limited period of time or is being pushed into low-wage sectors collects far fewer pension points, while the lifetime performance is often enormous – both physically and mentally. The injustice is that a system that is supposed to reward performance is in fact safeCareer paths in civil service are disproportionately secured, while risky biographies in the private sector end with lower aspirations.
Pensions from contributions – pensions from taxes
The statutory pension is financed from contributions from employees and employers, i.e. above all by those who bear the full labor market risk anyway. Those who pay into the pension fund not only bear responsibility for themselves, but also for the entire current pension year – and that when the pension level is declining. Civil servants’ pensions, on the other hand, are essentially outTax funds are financed, i.e. from the income to which employees who never benefit from this system also contribute. While employees in the private sector shoulder contribution rates and at the same time they are involved in financing pensions via taxes, civil servants are largely spared from statutory pension insurance – they are doubly better: higherOld-age security, lower direct contribution obligations.
Cold Progression and Devalued Pension Adjustments
Even if statutory pensions increase by a few percent, a mix of taxes, cold progression and other charges will eat up a significant part of this increase. If an adjustment pushes the pension up slightly, it can already trigger a higher tax rate, while at the same time prices for rent, energy and food rise faster than the net pension.So nominally euphonious increases in real hardly noticeable mini-increases or even hidden losses when you look at the purchasing power. Pensions, on the other hand, start from a significantly higher level and are often dynamically adjusted, so that the real gap between the average pension and the average pension does not become smaller, but larger.
Fragmental employment biographies and hard cuts
Many employees do not experience the ideal image of 40 to 45 years of continuous full-time employment with good wages, but a reality of industry changes, interruptions, care times, child-rearing, illness and involuntary part-time work. Each of these phases lowers the pension level at the end, although the social performance is high and without it often bad or evenUnpaid work would collapse entire economic sectors. For civil servants, such biographical gaps are much rarer and systemically mitigated because the employment relationship is designed for continuity. While a lost job in the private sector quickly leads to a break in the employment biography and thus to permanent pension disadvantages, the career in the state service remains in theAs a rule stable – with a correspondingly stable pension.
Non-transparent redistribution and blocked reforms
In the statutory pension system, non-insurance benefits and special political tasks are repeatedly financed by the health insurance company, such as certain family, compensation or transfer benefits that should actually come from general taxes. This will burden the pension fund without the person concerned clearly recognizing this, and the level of performance decreases gradually whileOfficial indicators give the impression of stability. At the same time, many basic structural questions remain untouched: the inclusion of civil servants in a common old-age security system, the harmonization of the assessment bases, the fair distribution of risks across all professional groups. Reforms that could create real solidarity burdens are postponed orMinimalist design, while the gap between average pension and average pension continues to rise.
Cented inequality in old age
The combination of a lowered pension level, average-based calculation in the statutory pension, security and peak salary calculation of pensions, additional tax burden on pensions and unequal labor market risks leads to a deep, structural split in old age. who stood in the engine room of the economy all his life, worked on construction sites, inCare, trade, logistics or industry, retired often well below the standard of living of those who have made a career in the warm shelter of the state service. This creates a silent but brutal message: Risk, hard physical work and fragile employment are punished with age, while safe careers with high civil servants’ salaries are being punished againabove-average pension entitlements are rewarded. The injustice of pension policy is not reflected in big slogans, but in the monthly balance of millions of people who have to realize that their lifetime achievements in old age count less than the right career in the right system.
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