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Nursing contributions: Criticism from trade unions and employers
This Saturday, the care contribution will be increased by 0.35 percentage points. photo
© Sina Schuldt/dpa
On Saturday the nursing fee will be increased. This should relieve the care finances by 2025. DGB board member Piel calls for real reform.
Increase of 0.35 percentage points
This Saturday, the care contribution will be increased by 0.35 percentage points according to a law passed by the Bundestag, slightly more for people without children. This is intended to secure the care finances for the time being until 2025. Families with several younger children are relieved. The reform by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in 2024 will also bring improvements for those in need of care in homes and at home.
DGB board member Piel said that a real reform could help, which would ensure that in an emergency everyone could rely on care with good services that would not make them poor. The DGB therefore continues to call for a long-term care insurance that reliably covers all care costs. “People in need of care and their relatives cannot wait any longer – the traffic light must fulfill its promises of reform from the coalition agreement,” warned Piel.
As an important step, the federal government must finally take over non-insurance benefits such as pension contributions for caregiving relatives. “In addition, he has to pay his debts to the insured.” The long-term care insurance advanced costs to combat the pandemic during the Corona crisis.
Employers complain about “new bureaucratic burdens”
Dulger said that measures to stabilize care finances had been agreed in the coalition agreement. “The traffic light has to finally tackle that.” At the same time, sustainable structural reforms would have to be introduced.
Employers are now hit twice: “In addition to rising additional wage costs, they have to shoulder new bureaucratic burdens.” The number of children of their employees must be recorded analogously. “The self-proclaimed progressive coalition wanted to advance digitization. One would have expected that they would make the necessary data available to employers digitally from the start through a central office.”
The changes in care contributions are intended to mobilize an additional 6.6 billion euros per year for care.
An overview:
The care contribution is currently 3.05 percent of the gross wage, for people without children it is 3.4 percent. On July 1, it will be increased, in combination with changes due to a judgment by the Federal Constitutional Court. Accordingly, a distinction must be made more according to whether one has children or not.
All in all, the contribution increases to 4 percent for childless people and 3.4 percent for contributors with one child. The included employer contribution increases from 1.525 percent to 1.7 percent.
In concrete terms, the care contribution for larger families will be reduced more significantly for the duration of the upbringing phase up to the 25th birthday of the child in question – gradually for each child. If you have two or more children, you have to pay less than today, based on the employee share of 1.525 percent.
With two children, the new employee share is 1.45 percent, with three children 1.2 percent, with four children 0.95 percent and with five or more children 0.7 percent. If a child is older than 25 years, “his” deduction does not apply. If all the children are out of the child-rearing period, the one-child contribution applies permanently, even if you are retired.