Pensioners in Germany can expect a significant increase in their pay next year, according to the pension insurance fund. "I assume that the missed increase will be made up for to a certain extent next year and that pensioners will get a decent plus in 2022," Gundula Roßbach, President of the German Pension Insurance Association, told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group."How much more it will be, we won't know until next spring, because we have to look at wage trends throughout 2021." And it is currently impossible to estimate how the fourth Corona wave will affect the economy and the labor market, he said. "Therefore, concrete predictions are unserious at this point in time."

This year, there had been a zero increase for pensioners in the West due to the Corona slump. In the new federal states, pensions rose by around 0.7 percent on July 1.The development of pensions is linked to wages. These had fallen on average in the Corona year 2020. Since a pension cut is ruled out by a "statutory pension guarantee," pay in the west stagnated. In the east, however, they rose slightly because the pension value will be gradually aligned with that in the west by 2024.

Large discrepancy between pensions and civil servants' pensions

82 percent of statutory pensions amount to less than 1,500 euros. In contrast, 95.1 percent of the pensions of federal civil servants are above 1500 euros. This is the result of a response from the Federal Ministry of Labor to a question from the Left Party, which is available to Editorial Network Germany (RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland - RND).

"The disparity with civil servants' pensions shows a two-class society," Dietmar Bartsch, parliamentary group leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, said according to the report. The Left Party is in favor of a major pension reform based on Austria. There, all citizens pay into the system, including civil servants, the self-employed and politicians.According to RND, the Federal Ministry of Labor points out in its response to the Left Party's question that the statistics also include very low pensions, for example, due to short periods of employment. Civil servants, however, are hired according to the lifetime principle. In addition, many of them have a university degree.