Schwerin/Lübeck (dpa/mv) – In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, around one in four employees accepts pension cuts in order to be able to retire early. As reported by the German Pension Insurance North on Thursday, 5,439 men and women in the Northeast used the option of early retirement in the previous year. With an insurance period of at least 35 years, this is possible at the age of 63 at the earliest. The pension is reduced by 0.3 percent for each month of early retirement. With average retirement benefits of a regular 1200 euros per month, this can be a good 100 euros less per month.
According to the information, the largest proportion of the 19,292 insured persons who retired in 2021 will receive a pension without deductions after 45 years of insurance. That was 7096 people in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. A further 5,410 new retirees will receive standard old-age pensions after they reach statutory retirement age. For those born in 1957, it is 65 years and eleven months. By 2031, the standard retirement age will gradually increase to 67 years. The remainder of the pension payments related to old-age pensions for severely disabled people, the expiring old-age pensions for women and old-age pensions due to unemployment or partial retirement.
According to the Deutsche Rentenversicherung, more than 430,000 people in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania received an old-age pension in 2021, for which they paid contributions during their working lives. This does not include former civil servants who receive state-funded pensions. The number of employees subject to social security contributions, with whose contributions the current pension payments are financed, was 580,900 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in April of this year.
