“We need to work longer in order to maintain the prosperity that generations have built up since the end of World War II,”
And where is that prosperity? The richest 10% of households own over 60% of net wealth, while the bottom 20% have no wealth at all. The top 10 percent of the german population accounts for around 61.2 percent of total wealth, with approximately 10.5 trillion euros.
And the difference between the top and the bottom only keeps growing. Because most of the profit generated by selling our work goes to the super-rich. This means lifting the retirement age will only increase the difference between poor and rich and mostly benefit the rich, who can retire early or work leisurely at will, while grinding down the old and poor.
We could easily take care of everyone in Germany if only we would commit to redistribute wealth more fairly instead of from the bottom to the top.
And the difference between the top and the bottom only keeps growing
For Germany, France, UK and the EU in general this is not true. The top-1% and top-10% wealthiest people own around the same share of their countries wealth than 25 years ago.
Outside Europe, however, the inequality has risen much faster in the same period, particularly in India and China. Just look at the numbers.
Addition: Look it up yourself - https://wid.world/world/#shweal_p90p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB;WO-PPP/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/37.836/125/curve/false/country
Now look at the bottom 50% and extend the horizon a little further.
From the peak of their share in 1988 to 2023:
- UK: 12.3% to 4.6% = -2.67x
- Germany: 7.6% to 3.4% = -2.23x
- France: 9.7% to 4.9% = -1.97
- US: 1.8% to 0.9% = -2x
And since wealth isn’t evenly distributed in the bottom 50%, this means the bottom parts have fallen even lower.
Then add the fact that government-provided services and safety nets like welfare, pensions, healthcare, education etc. function as a the largest part of the bottom 50% wealth. Consider how austerity and climbing retirement age affect that.
What you’re saying is that things aren’t as bad as they are elsewhere. True. But people notice and react to changes in their environments and the trends are in the the same direction as in the US. Which makes sense because the processes giving rise to the those trends are the same. E.g. declining union density. The slopes and starting points of the trends are different since the EU does a better job at slowing down accumulation, and so the current states are different, but without a change in direction, for now the US is Europe’s eventual future.
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Thanks for linking a source but this is a misleading interpretation, please don’t try to argue with data if you don’t know how to interpret it.
You need to look at e.g. the top 10%, middle 40% and bottom 50% to get a proper idea. And then look at it country by country because the scales don’t match. Yes, the USA are extremely inequal, I think back to like 1913 level in 2013 or something like that iirc, so if you put them on a plot with e.g. France, France will look great.
But if you look at France alone you get a different picture and inequality is rising again since the 80s. Here’s an article by a French economist with research focus on inequality which cites the same data: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/09/24/global-inequality-in-historical-perspective-part-1/
And people in France compare their own wealth share declining from yesteryear to this year, not to Americans’ wealth share.
Oh yeah I hadn’t seen your comment thanks for also pointing that out.
Thanks for linking a source but this is a misleading interpretation, please don’t try to argue with data if you don’t know how to interpret it.
Thanks for this. Inequality is now in Europe lower than it is in India, China, the U.S., and it is below the global average. It may be hard if this doesn’t align with your desired narrative, but this doesn’t change the fact.
There is no desired narrative. There is data and I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt but you seem to be actually incapable of interpreting it correctly.
Yeah, the benefit of the doubt is invaluable. So go back and rethink your interpretation.
“Competitiveness” in the race to the bottom, so people can work longer (and for less money) for the ultra rich, so they can become even richer. Fuck those parasites.
I see the German central bank is working to get the AfD in power.
Banks and Nazis, name a more iconic duo.
Why the hell does the central bank care about social policy?
Also Germany is a massive net exporter. That means the work force is clearly underpaid. So any sensible politician should strive to improve that by making the workforce smaller, by retiring old workers. Even the economy would shrink, what the hell are Germans supposed to be scared off? To be as rich as the French or worse the Spaniards. Last time I checked they were doing pretty well themself.
The primary issue isn’t the shrinking but the aging population and the associated costs with it, e…g, health care, elderly care, pensions will costs more, but’ll be paid for by a shrinking workforce.
and there is less spending on schools, kindergardens and universities…
Yes. According to the study I posted in this thread, the costs will slightly rise (unlike in the U.S. and China, where the issue is much more severe).
And the better response would be to take steps to improve public health in order to reduce the care costs, but that’s too much like hard work, so let’s just raise the retirement age and sweat some taxes out of those who remain healthy for longer.
The proper solution would be to change how we finance retirement and other social costs. It should have been switched to some kind if state owned fund decades ago when this whole debacle first appeared on the far horizon. Countries like Norway do this and after decades of steady investment their fund belongs to the biggest in the whole world.
Currently it’s being increased from 65 to 67. This seems to be a call to raise it to 69.
Many countries are going to face this choice in the foreseeable future giving their aging populations (African countries might among the few exemptions in this respect), with China and the U.S. are being hit harder than Europe, according to a recent report (opens pdf) on the rising cost to the public from Europe’s ageing population, Brussels-based think Breugel outlined the trajectory through 2070, using the latest country-by-country data from European Commission.
The report deals with familiar problems: pressure on budgets due to longer life spans, the need to raise retirement ages gradually and for better-funded pension and care systems, and more targeted employment-based inward migration. On major conclusion made is that the baby-boomer generation -usually those born from 1946 to 1964- will likely enjoy a generally more favourable retirement than either their parents or children. However, diverging life expectancies across the income distribution makes it complicated to raise average retirement ages in many EU countries, the report says.
Key summary:
- Breugel’s report calculates that on average the 27 EU members’ ageing-related costs - with categories such as pensions, long-term care, healthcare and education- will rise by just over 1% of GDP over the next 45 years.
- For the two other large global economies United States and China, the burden of an aging population is much more severe: Bruegel used the latest long-term U.S. estimates from the Congressional Budget office to show Federal government and healthcare expenditures in the U.S. will be rising about 4-5% of GDP through 2055. And it used the International Monetary Fund’s annual economic surveillance estimates for China where ageing-related spending is expected to rise by about five to more than nine times as much as in Europe.
- While projected cost increases in age-related public spending in the EU are manageable in all members, there are substantial differences between countries, ranging from a hike of over 10 percentage points of GDP in less populated countries like Luxembourg, to an expected decline of over two percent of GDP in Italy over the next five decades.
- Most of the variation between projected ageing-related spending increases in EU countries originates with pensions and long-term care. In contrast, projected expenditure increases in healthcare costs are quite uniform across countries, as are expected declines in education expenditure from fewer children.
- The budgetary implications for at least the more comprehensive European welfare states vary greatly, depending on who entering migrants are. According to the report, the EU migration policy design must strive to ensure a composition of employment-based inward migration that will most likely contribute positively to the fiscal outlooks of EU countries.
- The report also suggests to continue the already ongoing gradual shift towards a greater share of funded pension benefits in total retirement income. Carefully designed given their higher risks, more funded pensions in the EU could also unlock capital for productive investment, as EU households tend to keep a large share of their savings in currency and deposits and financial markets remain small in the EU relative to the U.S.
