Myth 1: “The pension after 45 years of insurance coverage is an unjustified early retirement.”
The fact is: This accusation misses the mark. Only those who have reached the retirement age and completed 45 years of insurance coverage are eligible.
The name “Pension at 63” has long been misleading. Only when the regulation was created in 2014 were certain birth cohorts actually able to retire at age 63 without any reductions. For all subsequent birth cohorts, this age limit is rising gradually.
For those born in 1961, the age limit is 64 years and six months. For those born in 1964 or later, it is 65 years. For insured individuals born in 1964 or later, this means they can retire without any reductions at age 65 at the earliest.
While this does mean that one can retire two years earlier, can a retirement at age 65 after 45 years of work really be called “early”? Anyone who speaks this way has little understanding of the effort that 45 years of work represent.
Furthermore, those who began an apprenticeship at age 16 or 17 and have worked almost continuously since then often accumulate more than 45 years of insurance coverage by age 65. The average length of insurance coverage at the start of the “old-age pension for particularly long-term insured persons” was 47.4 years in 2024.
Without this pension option, those affected would either have to work longer or accept permanent pension reductions.
Someone who started at age 16 and works until the standard retirement age of 67 will, mathematically speaking, have up to 51 years of employment. If the retirement age were raised further, employees would have to work even longer. This is unrealistic and unfair.
A large majority of people in Germany agree. Surveys consistently show that an overwhelming majority of the population supports maintaining a full pension after 45 years of insurance coverage—even if this would require an increase in pension contributions.
Only employers and some politicians want to shirk their shared responsibility for this important benefit.
Myth 2: “The pension after 45 years of insurance contributions is no longer financially viable and places a burden on the younger generation.”
The fact is: People in Germany are living longer. Some younger age groups are smaller in number than older ones, such as the “baby boomers.” We need solutions to this demographic challenge. But abolishing the “pension at age 63” is not the answer.
The pension for those with particularly long insurance records is often said to carry a price tag of ten billion euros in annual costs. This is incorrect and does not correspond to the findings of the underlying study. The issue here is not annual savings, but rather the total savings for a given cohort of pensioners over the entire duration of their pension benefits.
In fact, the pension fund would initially save only a fraction of the predicted amount. In terms of pension contributions, this would result in a savings of only 0.2 percentage points by 2050.
Potential savings also depend on how those affected would react to such an abolition. Likely outcomes would include higher expenditures on unemployment benefits, sick pay, or disability pensions. Abolishing the benefit would therefore merely shift costs to other social security systems.
There is no question that demographic change poses a challenge for the pension system. However, the pension for those with particularly long insurance histories is not the cause of this challenge.
Fair pension entitlements and a stable pension system can be achieved through other measures: higher productivity, more and better jobs, combating undeclared work, and sound migration and family policies.
Such policies would benefit the younger generation in two ways: through good working and living conditions today—and through the prospect of a secure, adequate pension tomorrow.
The real problem is that large fortunes contribute too little to the financing of the welfare state. The reference to a supposed “intergenerational injustice” is intended to divert attention from this issue of distribution.
Myth 3: “Retirement after 45 years of service exacerbates the shortage of skilled workers.”
The fact is: Retirement for those with particularly long insurance records does not contribute to the shortage of skilled workers. The shortage of skilled workers becomes a problem where there is a lack of quality education and training, as well as a lack of strategies for age-appropriate work.
Many companies do not value their older colleagues. This is evident from the challenges older workers face in the labor market: In 2023, older people were unemployed for an average of 108 days longer than younger people.
The argument that pensions for those with particularly long insurance records would exacerbate the skilled labor shortage is a smokescreen designed to divert attention from one’s own responsibility.
If companies want to retain older employees longer, they must improve working conditions, reduce health-related stress, create age-appropriate jobs, and promote continuing education.
Myth 4: “It is primarily high-earning men who benefit from retiring after 45 years of contributions”
The fact is: The image of a male, high-earning skilled worker with a generous early retirement pension is nonsense. People who claim retirement after 45 years of insurance coverage are not privileged top earners.
For many, their working life began early with vocational training. The fact that they are able to accumulate a relatively large number of pension points over the course of their working lives is primarily due to this long, uninterrupted period of insurance coverage. It does not automatically mean that they earned above-average wages.
Data from the pension insurance system shows exactly that: According to the data, employees who took advantage of the “retirement at 63” option in 2024 earned an average of about 1.003 pension points per year.
In other words, their income was very close to the average wage. This is because those who earn an average wage and pay pension contributions accordingly receive exactly one pension point per year.
Nor is the average pension for those affected particularly generous: in 2024, it stood at 1,647 euros per month (before taxes).
While men make up the majority of current “45-year plan” retirees, the picture is nearly balanced among new retirees. Women now account for 44.5 percent—almost half—of new recipients of the old-age pension for individuals with particularly long insurance records.
This is due, for example, to the increased labor force participation of women and the recognition of child-rearing periods.
Conclusion
Instead of pitting people against one another, policymakers should distribute the country’s wealth more equitably and effectively combat poverty in old age—for example, by further developing the basic pension, increasing collective bargaining coverage, and ensuring that large fortunes contribute more to the financing of social programs.
