The president of the social association VdK, Verena Bentele, is concerned about a lack of solidarity in society. In an interview with the Bayern media group, she cited the discussions about citizens’ money and pensions as an example. Inflation is particularly hard on people with small pensions.
In the discussion about pension package II, Bentele therefore called for the pension level to be raised again to 53 percent: “That would correspond to a one-off and permanent pension increase of ten percent and would adequately compensate for the high inflation rate last year.”
The VdK President explained that since the 2000s, pension adjustments have been decoupled from wage developments through reduction factors in the pension formula. Zero rounds would have made this even worse. In addition, wages react only with a delay to inflation and pensions in turn follow rising wages with a delay. Bentele is also critical of the fact that in the discussion about the budget the focus was reflexively on the expenditure side. This would severely unsettle people who depend on a functioning welfare state.
In Bentele’s opinion, it is right that the cuts plans at the Federal Employment Agency have been withdrawn. The VdK was committed to this. However, the association was unable to prevent cuts in tax-financed federal subsidies for pension insurance. Since the expenses remained the same, the contribution rate had to increase, and if contributions increased, the pension adjustment would automatically decrease in accordance with the pension adjustment formula in the coming year.
Bentele accused the traffic light government of using the pension reserves, which are urgently needed to cushion the consequences of demographic change and the associated increasing expenses. This leads to rising contribution rates for employees and lower pensions. Social cuts of this kind must stop. Instead, in financially difficult times for the federal budget, the VdK suggests looking at the revenue side and suspending the debt brake.