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More than 2.8 million employees do not save or save less than 3 percent of their wages in a supplementary pension plan.
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The coalition agreement that the De Croo government presented last year aims to further generalize the second pension pillar. The objective is that every employee can build up a supplementary pension with a contribution of at least 3 percent of his gross salary. We are still a long way from that goal, according to a new report from Sigedis, the government organization that manages the mypension.be website.
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No fewer than 36 percent of the 3.7 million employees had no second pension pillar at all in 2019. Another 40 percent did pay into a supplementary pension plan, but much less than the target of 3 percent of the gross salary.
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Big differences
Sigedis observes major differences between the employees. For an employee with access to the second pension pillar, the annual contribution in 2019 averaged 3.5 percent of wages, but that average is skewed by a small group who contribute much more than 3.5 percent of wages. For half of the actively affiliated employees, the contribution percentage was lower than 2 percent.
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The average contribution of employees who actively built up a supplementary pension in 2019 amounted to 1,699 euros over the entire year. Yet half of the affiliates had to make do with a contribution of less than 552 euros. The average contribution of the 20 percent of members with the highest annual contributions was 100 times higher than the average contribution of the 20 percent of members with the lowest annual contributions.
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Higher wages
The higher the wages, the greater the participation in the second pillar and the more often the proposed contribution rate of 3 percent is achieved. One in three employees built up a supplementary pension at the lowest wages, while the participation rate at the highest wages rose to 87 percent.
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One in three employees built up a supplementary pension at the lowest wages, while the participation rate at the highest wages rose to 87 percent.
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The differences in pension accrual are also large depending on the sector in which the employees are employed. In some sectors, the majority of employees achieved the target coverage. The type of plan in which it was built also has a major impact. 90 percent of the members of a sector plan did not yet achieve the desired coverage in 2019.
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According to Sigedis, 82 percent of all employees who do not meet the target still need at least a doubling of the current annual contribution to reach the threshold of 3 percent.
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