Money is no longer paid out for life: Berset wants to save on the widow’s pension

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The Federal Council has specified its plans to reform AHV survivors’ pensions. For example, widows and widowers should be treated equally. There are still differences today. For example, childless widows receive a pension in certain cases, while childless widowers do not. The widow’s pension also applied for life, the widower’s pension only until the children had reached the age of majority.

The unequal treatment has been criticized by the European Court of Human Rights and an adjustment is therefore necessary. The Home Affairs department of SP federal councilor Alain Berset (51) has now presented the key figures for the planned reform, which he intends to submit for consultation in the autumn.

Widows’ and widowers’ pensions have recently become payable to parents up to the child’s 25th birthday, irrespective of their marital status. For example, unmarried fathers and mothers also receive such a pension.

Savings program for the federal government and AHV

But otherwise it is a savings program, because new widows’ pensions will no longer be paid out for life in the future. Some dampening measures are planned for existing pensions. For example, the pensions of the over-55s will not be affected. An acquired rights guarantee also applies to people over 50 who receive a supplement.

The reform is intended to relieve the federal government by at least 100 million francs annually from 2026 and the AHV fund by 500 million. The new system should come into full effect in 2035 and the Confederation with CHF 160 million and the AHV with CHF 810 million. Berset wants to submit a concrete proposal for consultation in the autumn.

The trade union federation is already showing resistance. “Even before the increase in the retirement age for women goes into effect, the Federal Council is making gleeful progress with further reductions in women’s pensions,” he railed in a statement. “Instead of increasing women’s pensions and ensuring the care and education work they do with decent pensions, widows’ pensions should be reduced by 810 million.”

Child pensions are not touched

However, the unions do see a “glitter of hope”. The Bundesrat will stay away from AHV child pensions. Berset’s interior design department even analyzed two variants. Although it made it clear in advance that it actually does not want to receive child pensions. During the official consultation, Berset people warned that measures in the AHV area were “politically difficult, especially given the history of CS”.

Now the Bundesrat as a whole did not want to know anything about a termination or reduction of the AHV child pensions, the federal government writes in a press release. “Both measures would be too drastic for the economic situation of retirees with family responsibilities and the savings realized would be barely significant.”

Source:Blick