"Disproportion to pensions": Half of pensioners do not receive a 1000 euro statutory pension

The left sees a two-class society in old age and therefore calls for a pension fund for everyone and a minimum pension of 1,200 euros.

"Disproportion to pensions": Half of pensioners do not receive a 1000 euro statutory pension

The left sees a two-class society in old age and therefore calls for a pension fund for everyone and a minimum pension of 1,200 euros. While 70 percent of retirees received more than 2,000 euros, every second retiree received less than half.

The Left Party calls for an end to the "two-class society" in the German pension system. Just over half of the pensioners get paid less than 1000 euros from the pension fund every month, reported the "Augsburger Allgemeine", citing a response from the federal government to a request from the left.

Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch complained about a disproportion between pensions and pensions: "If 82 percent of the pensions in the country are below 1,500 euros, but at the same time more than 70 percent of the pensions are above 2,000 euros, the finding is clear: At the end of a long working life there are it's a two-class society in old age."

The pension needs a "general overhaul" in order to be able to secure the standard of living in old age, said Bartsch. "It is not the pensions that are too high on average, but the pensions that are too low." The minimum pension must be 1200 euros net.

To improve the situation of pensioners, Bartsch demands that the pension level be raised to 53 percent as a first step. "In another, old-age security should be put on a new foundation: A pension fund for all workers," said the Left Party leader. The self-employed and civil servants would then also have to pay in.