German pensions always interest me, and I noticed a short piece on Focus (the German news magazine) today, which talked to the value (or lack of value) of the pensions program.
Focus points out that one out of every two pensions today....are at the poverty level. Their data? It comes from the Federal Ministry of Labor (via a Linke Party request).
For the year 2016 (before taxation)...around 8.6 million German retirees (roughly 50-percent) took home less than 800 Euro a month.
If you went the next step up (to 1,000 Euro), then around 62 percent of German retirees were in that group.
Poverty in Germany? It's generally rated at 781 Euro or less.
What you can generally take out of this problem is that people are standing there at age 65, and trying to imagine their lifestyle upon retirement, and they basically have to find a mini-job, or a secret-job....to make enough to cover costs. If they are below the poverty level, then they walk into the government office to request Hartz IV (welfare) supplements....which the government is forced to pay to support the pension situation.
With a population of 82-million, it's roughly 10-percent of society in this pension situation, and likely bitter over the end-result in life.
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