Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), insists that the planned elimination of the so-called “Rente mit 63” (pension at 63) is essential. According to Fratzscher told the “Rheinische Post”, the abolition is the most critical financial component of the proposed pension reform. He estimates that scrapping this provision would result in nearly ten billion euros in long-term savings and create 125,000 additional jobs for each pension cohort. He warned that without this element, the pension reform would fail, forcing the federal government to restart the process entirely and completely restructure the funding of the statutory pension.
Fratzscher further cautioned that without abolishing the early retirement age of 63, the statutory pension system would increasingly lead to the redistribution of wealth from young people to old people, and from the poor to the rich. He noted that the Rente mit 63 primarily benefited higher earners and men, rarely aiding those threatened by pensioner poverty.
In related political developments, Federal Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) had called upon the Union party to clarify its stance regarding the abolition of the tax-free pension after 45 years of contributions. Bas stated on ZDF that the SPD would not oppose packaging in the change if that were the Union’s position.
