SPD on pensions

The SPD wants to keep the pension level permanently at no less than 48 percent, since the current safeguard ends in mid-2025. It rejects a higher retirement age, and people with 45 contribution years would still be able to retire two years early without deductions.

Pensions should not fall behind wages. The SPD wants to keep the pension level at 48 percent or more. The retirement age should not go up. People with 45 working years may still retire earlier. People who work past retirement age should get benefits.

Without an extension, the level would fall according to the platform, which the SPD regards as a de facto cut to future pensions. It wants to build on the Grundrente (basic pension) and improved disability pensions, and adjust how income is counted against survivors' pensions. For work past retirement age, the ban on prior employment would be dropped so the same employer can hire again on a fixed term. Employer contributions to unemployment and pension insurance would then go to the employees themselves, and a lump sum could be chosen instead of monthly pension supplements.

In the long run, everyone in work is to belong to the statutory pension insurance, starting with the self-employed. The SPD wants to give more support to occupational and private pensions so that low earners in particular can save additionally.

The public pension should later cover everyone who works. First, the SPD wants to cover self-employed people. Company pensions should get more support. State money for private savings should mainly help people with low pay.

The self-employed would get basic coverage for old age and reduced earning capacity that also holds when forms of employment change. Occupational pensions could be shaped through collective agreements; offers without a contribution guarantee but with higher expected returns are to spread further, and tax support for low earners is to grow. State subsidies for private provision would go only to new products with transparent, capped costs and focus on small and medium incomes.