The Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations sees itself as a lobby for young citizens. Her plan: “We will raise awareness of policies that are fair to the generations.” The foundation has prominent supporters such as Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Club of Rome), Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber (PIK Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) and Meinhard Miegel (Denkwerk Zukunft). .
Pension puts a strain on the coffers – politics should become “more generation-fair”.
What the foundation understands by “generation-fair” politics becomes clear when looking at the main topics of the Website .
There you will find explanations
- working world
- youth and democracy policy
- environmental and climate policy
- future policy
In addition, she plays pension policy an important role. The foundation formulates a whole series of reform demands. She wants the “regular retirement age to automatically adjust to life expectancy”.
FOCUS online spoke to Jörg Tremmel, spokesman for the board of the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations, about the pension reforms that he believes are necessary.
FOCUS online: What bothers your foundation in the current pension policy?
Jörg Tremmel: The current pension system is not generation-fair. It’s not socially just and it’s not transparent.
Please explain.
Tremmel: It would be fair for generations if the burdens were shared between young and old. When baby boomers retire ( from the mid-20s, note d. editor ) around three million people switch from employee status to retirement.
What is the drama?
Tremmel: With the arrival of the baby boomers, the pension insurance will lose around three million employees – they will then have to be paid out by the pension fund.
That’s four or five years away. But we have to share the burden between young and old. This means that the younger ones have to pay a little more, but the older ones must also be willing to get a little less.
Is that the division solution recommended by your foundation?
Tremmel: Exactly. We can’t just turn the contribution rate or the pension level – we have to adjust both.
So that the future burdens are distributed over all generations.
Tremmel: Yes. The Federal Minister of Labor does mention a third set screw: the federal subsidy, i.e. tax subsidies for the pension fund. In doing so, he fails to recognize that the tax revenue is also distributed among different generations. And the younger generation pays most of the tax revenue. In this respect, this is just a shift from contribution revenue to tax revenue. And makes the system even less transparent.
The federal subsidy should exactly cover the non-contributory benefits (such as B. “Mothers’ pension and “Retirement at 63”, ed. editor) cover. But no more. And the rest should be distributed between the generations within the pension system. This is the division solution.
The federal grant currently tops out at over $100 billion a year. How high would it still be if the government implements its request?
Tremmel: Significantly lower than now. However, there is no accounting for the non-contributory benefits. That’s why nobody knows for sure.
The federal subsidy is currently increasing every year.
Tremmel: We see a strong upward trend. Pension insurance was once organized differently, namely with the sustainability factor. There were serious reform efforts under the Schröder/Fischer government – namely the introduction of the sustainability factor.
To explain this, the sustainability factor takes into account changes in the proportion of pensioners to contributors. If the number of pensioners rises faster than the number of contributors, the adjustment mechanism takes effect dampening with a pension increase.
Tremmel: Only the GroKo has suspended the sustainability factor 2018. Since then we have experienced more and more intransparency. They want to hide how the costs will ultimately be divided between different generations. Hence our demands for the reintroduction of the sustainability factor. And you would have to link working life to increasing life expectancy.
Please elaborate on the last point.
Tremmel: Our pay-as-you-go pension system depends on the working phase being in a certain balance with the retirement phase. Fortunately, medical advances mean that we are living longer and longer. And stay healthy for longer. And with that, an ever-increasing part of our overall life falls into the retirement phase. That used to be 14 percent of the lifetime, now it’s 21 percent.
The proportion of working years in total life is falling, the proportion of retirement years is increasing.
Tremmel: Then, to top it all off, GroKo introduced retirement at 63 in mid-2014.
That was under Andrea Nahles. The measure shifts the relationship between working years and lifetime even further.
Tremmel: We need to see that we keep the ratio of years worked to years retired more or less constant. In other words, if statistically we gain three months of life every year, we have to divide this gained time: half of it should be spent working longer, the other half should be spent in a longer pension.
This would have significantly defused the problems of pension insurance. Because working life would be linked to a statistical indicator and there would not always be these unspeakable debates: “Should we all work until 67, until 68, until 69?”
They advocate a split.
Tremmel: Yes. But two to one would work too. The relationship would have to be negotiated.
Your foundation also calls for a uniform “employee insurance” including civil servants. You want to get away from the two-track pension system in Germany?
Tremmel: Yes. As in Austria, it would be best if society shouldered the coming burdens as broadly as possible. That means: There should be no special system for MPs and also none for civil servants. Then everyone would be in the same boat and would weather the coming storms that pension insurance has to withstand as a result of demographic change.
How do you see the chances of getting your reform proposals through?
Tremmel: In the most recent federal election, only 15 percent of those entitled to vote were under 30. But a good third were over 60 years old. The pension policy interests of the older generation are more or less fixed. That is why it is necessary for the youth to raise their voices and protest. There are parallels between climate and pension policies. In both cases, it would be cheaper overall to act now. So to set the important course in time.
