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The basic pension is intended to help people who have earned little in their professional lives to make ends meet. But is the pension allowance enough?
Frankfurt – More money for a worry-free retirement. Many pensioners in Germany who have received a rather low statutory pension so far are hoping for this from the basic pension. It is intended in particular to support people who have worked long hours and have thus paid compulsory contributions to the statutory pension insurance but still receive a below-average pension. According to estimates by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS) around Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), a good 1.3 million of the total of around 21 million pensioners in Germany are entitled to the basic pension allowance.
The German Bundestag passed the basic pension in the summer of 2020, and it finally came into force on January 1, 2021. The pensioners have not yet received the money from the allowance. Those affected can only count on the basic pension notices from July 1st. In it, the senior citizens can find out whether they benefit from the basic pension and, if so, how high the supplement to the statutory pension is.
Basic pension: is the pension supplement sufficient? Experiment should provide information
But does the topping up of low pensions really solve the problem of impending old-age poverty? To answer this question, the private television broadcaster RTL has started an experiment. A 48-year-old saleswoman made herself available as a test person to see whether the retirement benefits improved by the basic pension are enough to live on. She has been employed part-time since the birth of her child. Although the test person has already paid into the pension fund for 31 years, the pension prospects are sobering. According to her current pension notification, the woman is only entitled to a pension of 482 euros per month. Without her husband, she would face poverty in old age, reports rtl.de.
A calculation carried out in the experiment shows that the pension increases up to retirement age including the basic pension surcharge to a gross value of 850 euros per month. After taxing the pension, a net value of 700 euros remains, which the test person can live with every month. However: With this amount of money, the 48-year-old also has to pay all fixed cost bills such as rent, insurance and public transport.
Despite the basic pension allowance: After deducting the fixed costs, 172 euros remain from the pension
The bottom line and after deduction of all monthly fixed costs, the test subject still had 172 euros of the money from her pension. RTL has set two weeks for the duration of the experiment. During this period, the woman had half of the monthly remaining money at her disposal – and thus only 86 euros. Just shopping for groceries as part of the experiment cost her a good 29 euros. And that without drinks and toiletries, as the test subject reported from her experience.
It quickly became clear that large expenditures are not possible with such low retirement benefits despite the supplement from the basic pension. At the end of the two-week experiment, the woman had just three euros left – despite massive restrictions and drastic cuts in spending.
Fixed monthly expenses of the test person costs rental fee 362 Euro Strom/Gas/Internet 60 Euro Cell phone and landline connection 25 Euro Property insurance 20 Euro Public transportation 51 Euro Account management fees 10 Euro Those: rtl.de —
Pension: Test person speaks of doubts and panic despite the basic pension allowance
Their résumé after the pension experiment was correspondingly clear. “For me, giving up free time was the worst,” she said. “I was in a lot of panic, I’ll say that quite honestly,” she gives an insight into her emotional world. Above all, she had doubts about herself during the experiment. The fear of ending up with nothing and reproaching herself for having spent too much money preoccupied her, as she indicates.
The RTL experiment shows how precarious the financial situation is for many people in old age. Women who pay less into the pension fund because of childcare or part-time employment and ultimately also receive a lower statutory pension are particularly affected by the threat of old-age poverty. The basic pension is intended to remedy precisely these cases. However – and this is shown by the TV broadcaster’s experiment – even the increased pension is not enough for a retirement away from financial hardship. For this reason, some retirees are considering going to work at an advanced age in order to top up their pension. (Yannick Little)
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