Inequality between pensioners and civil servants

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The described inequality between pensioners and officials is not a side note, but an explosive device for every feeling of fairness in the country. Many find it to be sheer mockery when the retirement age is to be pushed up and the pension level is pushed down at the same time, while a comparatively small, particularly protected group of people is in comfortable pensionsadopted, which are often about twice as high as the average statutory pension.

Two classes of age

At its core there is a double system: On the one hand, millions of employees who pay contributions for decades, precarious jobs, temporary work, part-time jobs, mini-jobs and broken employment biographies – and ultimately have to reckon with retirement benefits, which are often just above basic security. On the other hand, a system of civil servants’ pensions, in which in the end it is not uncommon for thethree to four times as high, while the average statutory pension is more in the area of social assistance; This span is big enough to look like a slap in the face.

Demands for a longer working life

If state-related associations or state representatives are then asked to raise the statutory retirement age well over 67 years, this seems like a cold proof of power. For many, the current limit de facto means a hidden pension cut, because physically stressful professions and bad health simply prevent, up to this agePersistent – they end up in unemployment, reduced earning capacity earlier or have to accept drastic deductions.

Perception of civil servants as a closed fortress

The impression that access to the well-paid civil servants’ careers often runs through subtle social hurdles and family networks is particularly toxic to the sense of justice. Children from civil servants’ households can afford to study for several years longer and without existential pressure, to go through educational detours, to complete unpaid or poorly paid internships – everythingThings that are simply not included for many working-class or employee families. When these biographies then flow seamlessly into safe, well-paid places that justify the right to high pensions relatively early on, it looks like a closed system that serves itself and appears to the outside world with moral appeals to “generational justice”.

symbol of political implausibility

In this constellation, every debate about “necessary cuts”, “unavoidable reforms” and “alternatively without any increases” quickly falls into cynical. If some of you hear you constantly, you have to work longer, get by with less and become more “realistic”, while privileges, special rights and protective walls in the civil service and supply system are only hesitant and in cautious hints about privileges, special rights and protective wallsis spoken, politics appears like a one-sided treasurer who always rings the same. This creates the conviction that in truth it is not about constraints, but about who is organized strong enough to defend their own sinecures – and who is so weak that one can always take a little more away from him.

Erosion of trust and solidarity

The result is a creeping inner turning: Many citizens no longer see why they should trust a system in which lifelong effort, health signs of wear and real value creation are fed with poor pensions at the end of the day, while well-protected careers flow into quiet unproductive administrative channels and with lavish supply claimsbe gold plated. This is how the conviction grows that it is not the actual performance, not the real social contribution, but status, networks and the right social background that decide what age is like – and it is precisely this perception that eats up the foundation of political and social loyalty from the inside.