Only a few early retirees earn something extra

The greatly improved opportunities for early retirees to earn additional income have so far only been used by a few in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. A spokesman for Deutsche Rentenversicherung Nord pointed this out on Wednesday.

From 2021, women and men with an early retirement pension could earn more than 40,000 euros a year without it being counted towards their pension. Previously, this limit was 6,000 euros per year. This limit had been increased in the wake of the corona pandemic. And since the beginning of 2023, early retirees have been able to earn as much as they want for an unlimited period of time without their pension being reduced.

"You can also apply for this three months retrospectively," said the spokesman for the DRV in Lübeck, which also has ten advice centers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, including in Neubrandenburg. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, only 174 women and men used this opportunity in 2021, explained the DRV spokesman. More than 300,000 early retirees would have had the opportunity. This trend continued in 2022, but exact figures for 2022 will not be available until mid-2023.

Women and men can apply for early retirement if they are 63 and have worked for 35 years and paid into the pension fund. In December 2022, the Bundestag and Bundesrat decided on the new options for unlimited additional income. Early retirees can receive a slightly reduced pension in addition to their job, and increase their pension entitlement to 100 percent with additional contribution payments, as before.

In Hamburg, for example, only 86 of 180,000 early retirees took advantage of the opportunity in 2021, in Schleswig-Holstein 208 of around 240,000 early retirees. The background to the regulation is the increasing lack of skilled workers.