Overview

• Economics Minister Katherina Reiche argues rising life expectancy and demographic shifts make longer working lives essential beyond the planned rise to 67 by 2031
• Economist Martin Werding and fellow experts propose rule-bound increases reaching 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2070, plus higher deductions for early retirement and abolition of the widow’s pension
• SPD leaders Raed Saleh and Bärbel Bas have condemned mandatory extensions as disrespectful to hard-working and health-impaired citizens and defended current early-retirement provisions
• A gutachten commissioned by the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung warns that without scrapping the age-63 early pension and strengthening the sustainability factor, Germany’s pay-as-you-go system faces collapse
• The government-appointed commission is tasked with delivering detailed reform recommendations, though no new legislation has been agreed beyond the existing plan to raise the retirement age to 67 by 2031