The second best pension system in the world will be exchanged for a new pension if the Senate approves it today. In the new system, 1,500 billion euros will be divided into twenty million personal pension pots and your pension will go up or down more quickly. Are we moving forward?
After the pension agreement between employers and trade unions, it took another four years of political consultation before the Senate can vote on the new pension system. After an agreement, pension funds will switch to the new system in the next five years.
Op welke manier verschilt je pensioen straks met dat van nu?
- Van een pot per pensioenfonds, waarbij iedereen aanspraak maakt op een deel, naar individuele pensioenpotjes.
- Van korten bij een langdurig te lage dekkingsgraad naar ieder jaar een beetje korten of verhogen.
- Van de oneerlijke doorsneepremie voor jong en oud naar inleg voor je eigen potje.
Dat laatste verdient wat extra uitleg. Iedereen in een pensioenfonds legt nu dezelfde premie in voor de gezamenlijke beleggingspot. Maar omdat je geld voor jongeren veel langer kunt beleggen, is de inleg voor jongeren eigenlijk te hoog en die van ouderen te laag. In het nieuwe stelsel gaat je eigen inleg naar je eigen potje en wordt voor jongeren risicovoller belegd dan voor ouderen.
Pensions can go up or down faster
The new system is more sensitive to the investment performance of pension funds. The old pension is sometimes not sensitive to this. In 2022, pension funds suffered major losses due to a bad stock market year. But because interest rates rose, pensions in the current system went up for the first time in years. That while in the years before, pensions could not be increased with low interest rates and good stock market performance.
“That interaction can no longer be explained,” says Ger Jaarsma, chairman of the Pension Federation. “We had to wait years for pension increases. If we had had the new pension system earlier, we would have increased pensions almost every year since 2008.”
In the new system, good investment years are immediately rewarded with more pension in your potty. However, investment losses such as those of last year would immediately lead to a lower pension. According to Jaarsma, we shouldn’t be too afraid of this. “Pension funds book a return of 6 to 7 percent over the long term. Then you can bear a lesser year.”
Pension promise of 70 percent of your salary disappears
In the old system it was promised that you could, for example, receive 70 percent of your average salary as a pension. “That promise could not actually be fulfilled,” says Bastiaan Starink, professor by special appointment of Labor Market, Pensions and Taxation in Tilburg. Pension funds must maintain large buffers for this and ensure that there is sufficient cash. That promise is now, in a sense, being let go. As a result, lower buffers are required.
Starink: “By keeping smaller buffers, the fluctuations in the pension will become greater. More risk is taken, but that is positive in this case. Because it yields more on average. In addition, to dampen the effects of bad stock market years, increasingly (smaller) reserves are built up. Your pension is not at the mercy of the daily whims of the stock market,” says Starink, who also works at PwC.
Your old pension accrual will transfer to the new system
Most pension funds will probably transfer the old pension to the new system. You don’t have to, but otherwise you may be stuck with the old system for another sixty years. And that can be detrimental. This means that 1,500 billion euros will be divided into twenty million personal pots. This must be done carefully and honestly.
In the distribution, the elderly must receive at least as much as they are entitled to under the old system. And groups of employees (especially people over 40) will receive compensation, because they experience some disadvantages from accruing long-term pension in the old system and end up in the new system.
Because the switch is a complex operation, pension funds have almost five years to do so. “Not every fund can transfer on the same day,” says Jaarsma. Until 2028, some of the pension funds will therefore have already switched to the new system and some will still be working with the old pension.
Will this make your pension better or worse?
“It’s a big improvement. We have and will continue to have one of the best pension systems in the world,” says Starink. According to him, this is mainly due to the mandatory high accrual and the state pension for everyone. “But the new system is more of this time.”
“It could have been even better. Transferring the old pension could be simpler. And a quarter of working people do not accrue a pension. These are self-employed persons and employees without a pension scheme. These pension plans do not do enough about this. There is only a commitment to improve it.”
Jaarsma is convinced that the new pension will be easier to explain. “Your personal pension pot gives you more insight into how your pension is developing.”
2023-05-30 11:48:36
#change #historic #reform #pension #system #Economy
