The financing of the pension system stands on feet of clay. But the recently expressed idea of retiring at 70 has met with widespread rejection. What alternative idea an economist has and what craftsmen think of the discussion – a mood report.
Carrying heavy buckets of paint, plastering, masking, working overhead for hours – working as a painter is exhausting. “There are certainly even tougher jobs in the trades such as scaffolding or roofing,” says Kevin Wöhe, “but especially with these temperatures it’s a hard job for us too.” A friend, 43 like him, can hardly get out of bed in the morning because of the pain . “You can tell that people underestimate how 20 or 25 years in the trade can make a difference.” Practically everyone at 40 has their first ailments, if not worse. Last but not least, when discussing retirement at 70, Wöhe misses empathy: “You can probably hold a political office until you are 80 or 90, but not such physical jobs. You can only understand that if you’ve done it yourself for a long time.”
Christian Schuster is the owner of a carpentry shop in Geseke in East Westphalia and, as head foreman of the Soest-Lippstadt carpentry guild, has been leading the discussion for a long time: “You have to look at it differently: in our interior design department, it would be quite possible for some people to work until they are 70. But of course you can’t make that the rule for everyone. At some point, many have physical complaints.”
An example: If furniture is supposed to last forever, it is also correspondingly heavy. You can’t always wear things the way doctors imagine. Some staircases are just too small for that. Schuster is in favor of flexibility: “I really like the idea of people working as long as they can and want.” He himself tries to respond to the needs of the employees in the company, as far as the personnel situation allows. Older people would tend to work in production and less on the construction site or assembly line.
The debate about retirement at 70 was started in recent weeks by statements by Stefan Wolf. The general metal president said in an interview with the newspapers of the Funke media group: “We will have to work longer and more.” The reason is that the pension system would otherwise no longer be financially viable. “If you look at the demographic development and the burden on the social and pension funds, then the reserves have been used up,” said the head of the employers’ association, who incidentally is the head of the automotive supplier ElringKlinger in his main job and knows the working conditions very well.
Apart from the argument of necessity, Wolf mentions another one that has to do with the better state of health of the Germans: “We will gradually have to raise the retirement age to 70 years – also because the age is constantly increasing.” In fact, according to medical studies, a 65-year-old as fit today as a 55-year-old was in 1970. A second advantage that a later retirement would have is not openly stated, but is important for experts: The shortage of skilled workers would be alleviated if older people worked longer.
Wolf is not the only one calling for later retirement, nor is the debate new. Several economists keep making advances in this direction – even before the federal elections last year. However, the traffic light coalition has categorically spoken out against it. The coalition agreement is clear. Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) rejects the proposals: “We have agreed in the coalition that we will not increase the statutory retirement age. And nothing will change about that.” He thinks a flexible transition to retirement is the right thing to do. But the idea that you should work in a steel mill or at the supermarket checkout, as a police officer or as a nurse up to the age of 70 can only be had by people who live in a completely different world.”
The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) also reacted dismissively to Wolf’s idea: Retirement at 70 “is nothing more than a pension reduction with an announcement,” said DGB board member Anja Piel. Many employees would already no longer be able to “stay healthy until retirement”. It is the task of politics to secure the pension through an appropriate distribution of the available funds – but without cutting pensions or entering them later.
Everyone involved agrees that the pay-as-you-go pension system is reaching its limits. The population in Germany is aging, in the coming years many more “baby boomers” will retire than young people will pour into the labor market. Fewer and fewer young people have to finance more and more older people. The current situation is such that the retirement age will gradually increase from 65 to 67 by 2029. Hardly any expert assumes that this is enough to secure the financing. And now there’s inflation.
The economist Michael Hüther has developed an alternative because he believes that raising the retirement age is currently not politically feasible. The director of the German Economic Institute (IW) proposes increasing working hours to 42 hours a week: “Of course, the hours are paid – it’s not about cutting wages through the back door,” he said. “If you add that up, you would compensate for the demographically caused loss of work volume by 2030.” In Switzerland, two hours more are worked per week than in this country, in Sweden one hour more. “If you add that up, then by 2030 you would compensate for the demographically induced loss of workload.”
If a contribution has to be made, carpenter Schuster would find it better to work more hours a week than up to the age of 70: “Even as a 46-year-old I know that we have never worked as little as we do today.” That is also important Atmosphere in the company or specifically on the construction site: “If work is also a bit of a passion, then two more hours a week won’t hurt me. Many of my employees do not look at the clock either. But it is also clear to me that not all Germans currently have this attitude to work.”
For master painter Wöhe, the 42 hours are a drop in the ocean. “The core of the problem lies somewhere else: As a self-employed person, I was able to withdraw from the statutory pension after 18 years and did so immediately.” For him, it was worth making private provision. “I was even advised to do so by the pension insurance company. It would certainly help the pension more if all the lawyers and doctors would also pay in – and preferably with a higher cap than it is now.”
The article “”It is underestimated how noticeable 20 years in the trade is” comes from WirtschaftsKurier.
