With the demand to raise the retirement age to 70, the President of the Gesamtmetall, Stefan Wolf, rudely reminded the traffic light coalition of the unsolved financing problems of the statutory pension insurance. It’s not Wolf’s first time doing this. Employers and pension experts are constantly urging people to take the demographic forecasts seriously and respond to the heavy burden of the upcoming retirement of the baby boomer generation. But in their coalition agreement, the SPD, Greens and FDP treated the issue as a side issue.
Heike Goebel
Responsible editor for economic policy, responsible for “The Order of the Economy”.
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And this despite the fact that renowned economists had already made every effort to focus on the uncertain future of statutory pensions during last summer’s election campaign – to the annoyance of the campaigners, who avoided the topic. However, the forecasts of the independent advisory board at the Federal Ministry of Economics show that old-age security will be in for a “financing shock” if politicians do not finally react: towards the end of the decade, the pension entitlements acquired can only be met by sharply increasing contributions or much higher tax subsidies.