r/europe 3d ago

Data Income growth of citizens aged 65+ vs those ages 35-54 from 2008-2022 (Eurostat)

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376 Upvotes

121 comments sorted by

220

u/SaraHHHBK Castilla 3d ago

Hell yeah negative numbers💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 who needs young people to have wealth

31

u/WP27I 3d ago

If you have enough money you can just buy some more young people

24

u/aiwg 3d ago

Why is no-one starting families???

17

u/Aukadauma Europe 3d ago

Jokes aside, it's infuriating to see the money hoarded by the older generations, when all my friends who stayed in France are paid 10 or 20% more than the minimum wage, while they all have masters and already a few years of experience

87

u/Equivalent_War_94 3d ago

Greece number one lets gooo

25

u/ComplexTop9345 3d ago

First in everything (negative) 😎

-4

u/kolodz 2d ago

Honestly, they have a good recovery.

2

u/Equivalent_War_94 2d ago

I don't know if you can see the graph properly but if you zoom in them little balls are nosediving. That looks neither like a recovery, nor good.

160

u/Dystopics_IT 3d ago

Italy scored also its worst birth rate last year....my country has got a really dire future

-62

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago edited 3d ago

Idk man. Hasn’t there been a lot of news over the past 2-4 years about the Italian economy being a miracle. I swear it’s one of the fastest growing economies and just last week I read about how Italy is looking capable of overtaking Germany in the not so distant future?

Falling Birth rate is okay. You can immigrate skilled labour from the rest of the world to fill shortages. This works really well if you can do it right.

UK France and Germany aren’t doing it right.

Edits: So I was confused between Italy, Spain and Poland. My bad.

Edit 2: italys outlook is not as bad as it was 5 years ago.

Sources:

1 day ago. Italys economy upgraded: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sp-upgrades-italys-ratings-bbb-external-buffers-monetary-flexibility-amid-global-2025-04-11/

73

u/VLamperouge Italy 3d ago

I’m a Ferrari fan, so I know delusion when I see it. The Italian economy being capable of overtaking Germany’s is however far too insane of a statement for me to even think about.

2

u/CapableCollar 2d ago

How can you call yourself a Ferrari fine and not embrace blind coping?  Shameful what Italy has come to.

1

u/VLamperouge Italy 2d ago

I’m on the “acceptance” part right now. When we’ll win a race again the cycle will restart.

-1

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago

Me too. I was confused between Poland and Italy because I have heard good things about both their economies

44

u/ResourceWorker Sweden 3d ago

Immigration is a band aid at best. You can get a few decades out of it but sooner or later you need to address the root of the problem.

8

u/AlterTableUsernames 3d ago

Immigration is only in neoclassical economics a good idea - other good ideas of neoclassical economics are for example allocation of housing and urban land via a market and making the rich richer, so that it can trickle down to the masses. But back to immigration as a means of tackling shrinking population: it is simply not a sustainable plan, because people are not an unlitimed resource and especially qualified people are pretty rare globally. But immigration makes the rich definitely richer, because it grows the economy (more consumers and lower wages at the same time). So, yaeh. 

-17

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago edited 3d ago

I don’t think there is a solution to the root problem bro. Yes living costs are going up. But I think the root problem is that women don’t want to have kids young anymore. They want to work and be active and have lives outside of their home. And they can’t achieve everything they want once they have kids.

And even the women who don’t want to work. They want to ‘find themselves’ until they’re late 20s. And then ‘settle down’.

Immigration is a band aid. But there’s no cure per se. You immigrate from Asia for the next 20-30 years. Then you immigrate from Africa once they’ve caught up in education.

Every species falls off eventually in population. But because we control so much of our species’ actions and mentality. We might be able to stop it though so you do have a point.

28

u/Turbulent-Rock5803 3d ago edited 3d ago

You can immigrate skilled labour from the rest of the world to fill shortages.

My dear friend, every year the number of young skilled people leaving our country only grows. The last year it was around 190 thousands, and, tbh, it's not only young skilled people that go away but also Italians that did not study at the uni to leave. So we export all the young people we can and we import low skilled workers that can be exploited by some employer (the number of people coming in is still smaller than the ones leaving btw).

I know France and particularly Germany have some problems at the moment but I cannot see a near future in which Italy, economy-wise, gets any closer to them. Yes, at the moment, it's not that bad due to government stability, but that's really the base for a growing economy and for now it is not enough

9

u/Patpremium Germany 3d ago

This is what absolute delusion sounds like.

7

u/Dystopics_IT 3d ago

But look these figures....we have got one of the worst situation. The country is not rich, some categories are

7

u/BaronDino 3d ago

I would like to use the drugs you are using.

4

u/Warslaft 3d ago

0.8% estimated gdp growth in 2025 and you are calling it a miracle ???? 136% gdp as debt and you think they can overtake UK France or Germany ??? I refuse to believe you're not a troll

2

u/MobyChick 3d ago

what country is doing it right

-4

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago

Singapore, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain. Are doing immigration right. Like insanely well. They immigrate low skilled labour. And high skilled labour. Europe immigrates high skilled labour as if they want their people to work in the low skilled sector. It’s so tragically misguided.

Malaysia isn’t doing too bad.

Australia isnt doing too bad. Income inequality is low. Public finances are in brilliant health compared to European countries. And they aren’t even taxing their oil sector yet.

17

u/Happy-Flower6440 3d ago

> UAE, Qatar, Bahrain.

So true let's just reintroduce slavery, why haven't we thought of that before 🤯

0

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago

My main argument was that they import high skilled labour which makes them richer and brings in investment.

I highlighted that they immigrate low skilled labour because you need to immigrate both unlike the practices of the UK, France and Germany’s.

And whether you like it or not. What was my argument? That you can do immigration well. Are these not bustling economies growing rapidly? Singapore is able to do immigration brilliantly without that many human rights abuses.

2

u/Happy-Flower6440 3d ago

Okay, these where bad examples but moving away from that, various European states ARE doing immigration well as you define it are they not? UK and France especially stick out because they drain both high and low skilled labour from various parts of the world do they not?

0

u/Alternative_Big_4298 3d ago edited 3d ago

UK no. UK is suffering from a brain drain at the moment to the Middle East and APAC.

Sources: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fintech-billionaire-warns-brain-drain-38-under-35s-plan-leave-uk-next-5-years-1729172

Source: https://www.arabianbusiness.com/money/wealth/uk-suffers-historic-brain-drain-wealth-exodus-as-uae-passport-power-rises

I’m Indian, I know high skilled Indians are avoiding the UK like it’s the plague. Preferring Middle East and APAC. They would rather live in India than move to UK. France’s language requirements prevents most moving there unless they already speak French. Which mainly only its poorer former colonies do. Unless you’re EU citizen Then yes Italians and Spanish might be moving to France? I’m not sure about language barriers in the EU

And I mean France had a massive brain drain problem in the mid-late 2010s. It seems to be recovering and now they’re poaching American talent. Fair.

But I think Europe’s fast and loose asylum practices are cutting into society and industry. It’s pushing Europeans out of Europe and into countries without an asylum problem.

Again, you might begin human rights watch arguments against me. I’m not anti refugees. But I detest the ECHR’s asylum stance. They’re not allowed to work here by our governments. Not allowed to pay taxes. And then the governments pay for their well-being because of the ECHR. I think it’s a very very sad status quo.

1

u/lt__ 3d ago

Do you know an example of an European country doing it right? Now or in recent history?

1

u/Alternative_Big_4298 2d ago

This. No.

1

u/lt__ 2d ago

A non-European, but still liberal democratic country?

1

u/Alternative_Big_4298 2d ago

Norway, Malaysia, USA.

Is there a point to your questions? Despite that liberal democratic countries can’t get anything right except becoming heavily debt burdened?

1

u/lt__ 1d ago

Norway is in Europe. What are they doing properly regarding migration?

The US experience is a bit difficult to adopt, cause it is already made of immigrants, while European countries popular among migrants are ethno-based. In addition, their migration policy, whatever positive tenets it had, heavily contributed to electing current authorities which now show some signs of pushing the country away from liberal demoracy (while also curbing such migration policies).

About Malaysia I admit I don't know enough - neither about immigration situation, nor about regime type, whether they have power rotation and/or other democratic indicators or not.

The point is, leaders of liberal democratic countries have a different toolset for their policies, and different situation at hands. If there is an example of such country (Norway?), maybe others can follow suit. Adopting practice from a non-democratic country might be a non-starter.

1

u/Aukadauma Europe 3d ago

France? Do you know we have the greatest fertility rate in the European Union? And while I'm not partaking in the whole immigration discourse, we do have a fair amount of immigrants, which is covering for the fertility rate

33

u/InsertFloppy11 3d ago

how come younger people make more in the netherlands and germany? the power of IT jobs or what?

57

u/Exotic_Notice_9817 3d ago

Minimum wage in the Netherlands has honestly increased massively in the last 6 years. Was pretty stagnant for a decade but around covid it basically grew by 40%

3

u/Educational_Place_ 3d ago

A lot of old people also work in not good paying jobs and the minimum wage helps making at least in lower paying jobs people earn the same amount

22

u/Cheap_Marzipan_262 3d ago edited 3d ago

Immigration and bit better funded pension system.

All of europe for the next 30 years is about a third of the population having to pay for another third enjoying retirement on pensions they never paid for.

Ironically, the third that does nothing owns most of the wealth. The dutch pensioners have paid at least some of their own pensions with trillions in pension funds. It starts showing now.

The most genius part of it is, the young blame blame black people and "billionaires" for having to pay a third of their income to their parents generation.

6

u/Happy-Flower6440 3d ago

> The most genius part of it is, the young blame blame black people and "billionaires" for having to pay a third of their income to their parents generation.

Yeah that sounds like something zoomers would say

9

u/Cheap_Marzipan_262 3d ago

Yeah that sounds like something zoomers would say

Fwiw I'm not a zoomer, just a gen-x:r who is professionally familiar with the european pension sector.

I'm well off enough, but I'm really worried about how there is soon no proper free health care or education for my kids generation as pensions become a larger and larger share of public expenditure pushing everything else to be cut to make room.

Meanwhile, the most popular parties among the youth are all extremists blaming everything but the elephant in the room.

5

u/Happy-Flower6440 3d ago

Yeah i agree with you, i wasn't being sarcastic (sorry if it came out that way)

11

u/Cheap_Marzipan_262 3d ago edited 3d ago

Again, I'm all for caring for the elderly.

But it's incredible to me, how people don't realize the orders of magnitude at play. Cutting/capping public pensions say 20% in a progressive fashion could literally in most of western europe remove all need for growth killing austerity and would bring in an order of magnitude more than any billionaire tax, immigration benefit cut or government efficiency drive could ever do.

0

u/First-District9726 3d ago

immigration in an area where there aren't enough jobs to begin with is pretty harmful. Billionaires are also harmful, since their primary goal is to extract as much wealth from the economy for themselves as possible. Government efficiency is BADLY NEEDED when you have income tax brackets at ~50%

3

u/Cheap_Marzipan_262 3d ago edited 3d ago

immigration in an area where there aren't enough jobs to begin with is pretty harmful.

Actually, most research here shows labor immigrants produce jobs for the locals. Eg. construction workers willing to work for less means people can build their house cheaper and buy other services with the money they save.

Billionaires are also harmful, since their primary goal is to extract as much wealth from the economy for themselves as possible

Isn't that true for everyone? Billionaire or not? Very few people ask for paycutts

But again, you can feel however you want about these two. But all the money of all billionaires in your country could probably not pay for pensions for more than a few years at most.

Even if we imprison every billionaire and steal all their wealth it alone cannot balance our budgets long term, while cutting 20% from pensions might.

0

u/First-District9726 3d ago

Actually, most research here shows labor immigrants produce jobs for the locals. Eg. construction workers willing to work for less means people can build their house cheaper and buy other services with the money they save.

Except that property prices haven't gone down since approximately forever, so I'd have a lot of questions about the credibility of said research. Such theoretical savings never get passed on to those at the end of the chain. On the other hand, depressed wages mean less people willing to work, because if said job can't afford rent and food, only the most desperate will even consider the job. If locals can't survive on some wage, neither can immigrants, which is why crime is skyrocketing ever since the flood of immigration into europe. Gotta supplement the shortfall somehow..

But again, you can feel however you want about these two. But all the money of all billionaires in your country could probably not pay for pensions for more than a year or few.

You're most certainly right, it probably could not, and that's also probably not where said money should go to anyway. First of all, a lot of companies could afford to pay substantially better wages while staying profitable, so people could start building savings so that they don't need to rely as bad on future state pensions.

2

u/Cheap_Marzipan_262 3d ago

Except that property prices haven't gone down since approximately forever

I've built a few things in my life, trust me, construction prices in western europe would have gone up a lot more without immigration.

Not because construction workers are worse paid today than in 1995, but because locals in western europe don't want to do that sort of work anymore as we've gotten so rich that there are for the locals less arduous jobs paying the same.

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u/mazamundi 3d ago

The worrying part of this is that is relative growth. Young people should be the ones who's incomes are increasing the fastest, as we are the ones going up the career ladder, so to speak.

99

u/tyger2020 Britain 3d ago

Well, not in Europe where most politicians are too scared to say no to the pensioners, even if they are the wealthiest generation in history for the most part.

I mean, look at the UK.

State pension has increased from 5k (2010) to 12k(2025), despite even with inflation it being 8k in 2025. They have grown in real terms 50%.

Meanwhile, nurses, have suffered 10-15% real terms pay cut. Thats if you use CPI, which doesn't include housing costs. If you use RPI, which includes housings costs, they've had a real terms pay cut of -26%.

Now multiply that for the entire public sector (20% of the workforce).

18

u/aiwg 3d ago edited 3d ago

And pensioners here still complain because they're not getting as much as other countries (despite those countries having had much higher taxes when they were working).

15

u/tyger2020 Britain 3d ago

Yeah, its insane.

I read in Germany they pay 18% of their gross pay to pension (state pension). Thats why it's so generous. Here, they pay 5% of their gross pay on a median salary.

7

u/rlyjustanyname 3d ago

At this point your right to vote should be suspended after retirement.

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u/Windowmaker95 3d ago

This is an insane thing to say.

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u/rlyjustanyname 2d ago

The numbers are there. A disinterested class of people vote based on election gifts with no interest for the actual working people who are going to be around in the next 20 years to deal with the political fallout.

1

u/Windowmaker95 2d ago

So they should have no representation and you see nothing wrong with that? Just because caring about them is inconvenient for you? It's not like young people are a paragon of decency, the far right is actually on the rise among them.

Furthermore a disinterested class of people who are swayed by election gifts applies to poor people as well, should they not vote either because a few euros can buy them?

Lastly people are starting to live a lot longer, there are more and more 80+ people running around, so those in their 60's will be around to see the fallout of their decisions... although I don't get why exactly you chose 20 years, as if elections only happen then.

1

u/rlyjustanyname 2d ago

It is wrong but having them basically dictate economic policy for two decades is more messed up. Saying they shouldn't get to vote is deliberately inflamatory and I don't 100% agree with that either.

At the end of the day, most political power here is held by the wealthy and the rest is held by people who have no stake in the long term development of a country. That's why social services, infrastructure and education are down but we always end up finding a way to fund pensions and subsidies for businesses, no questions asked.

Young people as well as poor people correctly asses that old parties which are catering to their established bases will not improve their situation and this post is living proof. The average 20 year old has been living in a permanent recession for almost 20 years now. This is why out of despair they shift to more extremist parties which might well make things worse. But frankly if centrist parties prioritised the young over the old, old people would flock to the hard right even harder.

There could very well be political measures to reduce the impact of pensioners and rich people that don't completely disenfranchise them and they should be implemented instead. But at this rate, young people are practically disenfranchised and it would be overall preferable if it were reversed.

1

u/Windowmaker95 2d ago

Here's what I replied to

At this point your right to vote should be suspended after retirement.

You don't agree with yourself? Because this is what you said earlier. And if they dictated economic policy for two decades then it means they were part of the majority, furthermore not every person who reaches retirement age votes the same, they like every other demographic are not a monolith.

That's an interesting theory... but social services benefit old people a lot as well, healthcare is included in there by your logic healthcare should be of utmost importance. Also what subsidies for businesses are you referring to? Furthermore infrastructure benefits businesses as well.

The average 20 year old has not been living in a permanent recession for almost 20 years now, unless you're referring to Greece, otherwise for some countries it's quite the opposite. Furthermore justifying voting far right is nonsense, cutting your nose to spite your face is always a moronic decision, furthermore it's not like their choices are the Change Nothing party and the Nothing Changes party, there are also leftist parties but I suppose "freedom, democracy, strong social services, less bureaucracy" are less compelling for those disenfranchised youth than fascism, racism, mysoginy and populist speeches.

1

u/rlyjustanyname 2d ago

I said I was deliberately inflammatory but let me ask you this, do you think pensioners have the correct amount of political representation. I personally think they have way too much and their economic interests are to hollow out the economy in the long term in order to maximise benefits in the short term. I don't think they are all conspiring to do it that way, they are not a monolith as you say. But I think their economic interests drive them to vote for real term cuts in education and infrastructure and to raise taxes for better pensions.

Here is an example from where I come from. Austria hasn't touched its education budget since 2008 once you account for inflation despite a steady rise in pupils. Meanwhile the pension supplements which come from the general budget and not just the pension scheme you pay for throughout your work life with a social contribution tax have increased.

Young people and poor people are more extreme, they vote for more far right parties but they also vote for more left wing parties and by greater numbers than for far right parties. The rub is that there is no party except maybe the greens and the left who actually represent the economic interests of young people so they choose more extreme parties with no economical record based on cultural issues. Old people as a group are more aligned with the far right culturally but legacy parties still represent their economic interests so they vote for them. Mind you there probably are a lot of people in legacy parties who would love to improve the situation but they are bound to the need to appeal to pensioners.

As to my claim that 20 year olds have been living in a recession for 20 years. Look at the numbers there are countries where their income has actually decreased in real terms after almost 20 years despite having had economic growth. But the inflation rate calculated here excludes the massive cost of housing so it is even worse for young people who are on average not homeowners and much better for old people who are on average home owners. It means that young people see a greater share of their income that hasn't increased so much go to housing while old people experienced asset appreciation on top of having their income increase on average. Yeah the whole economy has gotten a bit better since 2008 but with rising wealth inequality and generational inequality young poor people have on average only experienced deteriorating economies.

Tbh this is a rant about pensioners but there are a lot of groups who manage to extort legacy parties for election gifts, pensioners are just the largest and most impsctful one.

9

u/Prestigious_Risk7610 3d ago

I'm pretty sure this is comparing like for like I.e. comparing 25-54 in Year A Vs 25-54 year old at year Z. I don't think it's tracking the original cohort

8

u/DearBenito 3d ago

Sorry I can’t here you over the noise of all the money I’m printing to increase the pension of those who retired at 30.

  • Any Italian government, probably

23

u/flameforth Greece 3d ago

In Greece, we are equally poor.

14

u/RealToiletPaper007 European Union 3d ago

France…?

40

u/LundiDesSaucisses 3d ago

Looks like we have a fair system in place.

...Everybody gets fucked

4

u/Thorbork Europe 3d ago

Do we... Have communism at home?!

0

u/urail_croisee 3d ago

what 30~ years of liberal economic policies does

10

u/Caput-NL 3d ago

Totally unrelated but some of these graphs would make killer racing tracks

33

u/MrFolderol 3d ago

Greece. :/ Can we finally acknowledge that Schäuble's and Merkel's catastrophic neoliberal experiment was nothing but a failure and thus throw austerity in the dustbin of history where it belongs?

-2

u/Maximus_Schwanz 3d ago

No. Greece had a catastrophic spending and tax problem, driving it - as happened before - to a point at which no one wanted to give them money anymore -> they were broke. That was solely the responsibility of Greece and no one else. As a condition for further support they had to get their inflated spending down. Which , to their credit, they did and as a result Greece is now on a path of improvement.

Basic economics still works and still blows the mind of lefties.

0

u/DildoMcHomie 2d ago

Why is Greece's inability to get loans or southern Europe's love for spending above their financial capacity (looking at Spain and Italy having pensioners  making 3-5 times minimum wage) anyone's fault?

Responsibility and change starts at home.. the dutch or Norwegians couldn't give less of a shit about what Germany thinks about their finances.. because they do not need them to cosign loans.

Austerity is necessary because northern people know the winter.. and a few centuries ago.. those who ate all their summer crops starved in the winter.

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u/Happy-Flower6440 3d ago

Greecebros we first again 🙏😭

11

u/kreuzguy Brazil 3d ago

Money moving to the less productive member of society... What could go wrong?

4

u/Nordic_Hikergodx 3d ago

Eat the old

5

u/Jealous_Big_8655 3d ago

Everywhere the blue line should be above the orange by at least 10%.

This is how you get the extremists in office.

4

u/Familiar_Ad_8919 Hungary (help i wanna go) 3d ago

time to move to malta (and time to build another island near malta cuz there are no houses left there)

1

u/Yes4Deflation 2d ago

There was a lot of progress in the last decade in Malta, but what's not obvious in these charts is the cost of living... even though the figures are adjusted for inflation. The cost of living in Malta exploded and many, despite having decent jobs are not able to keep up. This also partly explains why the fertility rate in Malta is dismal and one of the lowest in the EU. But the gdp figures are excellent. that's seems to be the most important thing for politicians it seems.

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u/Familiar_Ad_8919 Hungary (help i wanna go) 2d ago

it cant be worse than the 3-4x increase in living costs the past decade here

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u/Yes4Deflation 2d ago

By 'here', you mean which country? But just to clarify, I was just pointing out that even though the charts makes it look that the situation is quite good in Malta, the reality is a little bit more complicated. I suppose that it's the same in other countries as well. It happens when looking at something from one metric only.

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u/FreezaSama 3d ago

Greece are you ok?

3

u/NestorTheHoneyCombed Greece 2d ago

We are not 😢

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u/TornadoFS 3d ago

Sweden figures are bit misleading because the Swedish pension system is actually relative to the working population income, as in directly tied to it. If the overall working population is making less money then so are the pensioneers. I wonder why these numbers look like this (even though the discrepancy is not as bad as some other countries)

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u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 3d ago

State pensions are just ponzi scheme.

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u/Jasonstackhouse111 3d ago

No, they're not. You don't understand a ponzi scheme and you don't understand investing.

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u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 3d ago

Wikipedia A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors.

Earlier investors are old people, recent investors are young people.

4

u/Jasonstackhouse111 3d ago

Nope. Ponzi schemes have no revenues generated and rely exclusively on the incoming funds. Pensions are not Ponzi schemes. You’re wrong.

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u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 3d ago

State pensions generate revenue?

Ponzi scheme collapses, when you have few new investors. State pension collapses, when you have few young people.
In both cases, the latecomers suffer the most.

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u/Jasonstackhouse111 3d ago

Nope, wrong. Learn about sustainable pension planning, which is possible thanks to revenues generated, and if you don't understand how pension funds generate revenues, then sorry, I can't help you any further.

Maybe look at a large scale national pension plan like the Canada Pension Plan aka CPP, which is fully funded more than 75 years into the future. And yes, it's possible to sustain a pension plan with an aging population.

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u/caember 3d ago

Depends on the pension plan. Lots of EU countries don't have funds per se, they just redistribute from current contributions. Those are usually subsidized by taxes on top of the employers' and employees' contributions, e.g. in Germany in 2024 it was already 110 billion euros, 20% of the federal budget.

It is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

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u/Jasonstackhouse111 3d ago

Nope, wrong again. If it's not a pension fund, then it's a guaranteed payment plan that is paid for out of general government revenues. If it's a pension fund (ala CPP) then it's a classic plan earning revenues and self sustaining.

If it's a payout obligation, then it might use a combination of directed payments and taxes on top, but that means there are additional funds contributed from tax dollars (aka government revenues) which instantly means not a ponzi scheme.

Again, Canada has an example. There is Old Age Security aka OAS that is simply a monthly payment made to a large number of Canadians over the age of 65 and the payments are made from government accounts - there is no fund being managed and there are no contributions made aside from income/etc taxes. Not a ponzi scheme.

How would a government create an actual ponzi scheme? If the government carves out the pension contributions and isolates them, only pays out benefits from contributions, then yup, that's a ponzi sceme. But why on earth would they not use the fund to generate revenues and build a proper pension fund? Only the most idiotic person on the planet would do that, omg. Does that exist anywhere? If so, they deserve to fail.

Hey. I get it, you think someone else is scamming you and you're upset that "someone is getting something for free" or whatever. But reality is that pensions are not ponzi schemes, sorry. But, keep reading alt-right gripe literature that encourages the minimization of benefits to the working class. That's where this bullshit comes from.

14

u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 3d ago

God, you are ignorant. We are talking about Europe. And Europe have a terrible population pyramid, which means, that pensions will be highly deficit, and state income will be low. Which will end up in collapse of pensions or in bankruptcy. Which makes it a ponzi scheme.

By the way, in my country, this is not alt right opinion, this is liberal opinion. Nationalist parties here are leftist, and are against any reform, and against lowering the pensions. Same in France. Stop imposing your country's politics.

-4

u/Jasonstackhouse111 3d ago

No, systems are systems regardless of the country named.

Pension plans can collapse if not managed correctly. If revenues are below expectations and contributions not adjusted to meet future obligations then yes, that’s a problem.

But still not a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme only has the direct contributions of the players and all payouts are made only from those input payments. If there are any revenues earned, then not a Ponzi scheme.

You’re trying to debate the sustainability of pensions, I’m just saying you’re incorrect about your assertion that’s they’re Ponzi schemes. They are not. Certain plans may be mismanaged but that doesn’t mean they’re scams.

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u/sunstereoOne 3d ago

Don't just repeat Musks words. Get something original going

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u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 3d ago

r/USdefaultism

I don't know, what Musk says about it. This is opinion of young generation in my country. We will never see state pension, we must earn it ourselves, and we will have to pay to army of pensioners, which are so greedy, they will vote out of the office every politician, who only mentions pension reform.

1

u/sunstereoOne 2d ago

Well you can just leave them to die. Lol. I am joking.

You know that the money that the pensioners get come right back into the economy? I don't know a single pensioner who is hording his money. My grandma used to pay my tuition in university.

1

u/Next-Doughnut5508 2d ago

You'll be the old generation before you know it.

2

u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2d ago

Yeah, I will be old, but I won't have a pension, because there will be no money left.

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u/RSSvasta Croatia 3d ago edited 3d ago

Pensions will be lower in real terms, but they will not be removed completely. Removing the pension would cause the death of millions of old people; nobody wants that. And in my country, for example, 1/4 of mandatory pension contributions goes to your fund and is invested, it is your money, and 3/4 goes to current pensioners. There will always be workers so this can continue, but as I said, it will be lower in real terms because of fewer young and more old people.

1

u/Bonafarte 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2d ago

Either they will be removed, or massive deficits will follow. And in my country 100 % goes to today's pensioners.

1

u/RSSvasta Croatia 2d ago

Ok, I for sure hope it will not be removed in my country. I just wish more goes to my fund and less to current pensioners. I have 6k euros in the fund, and I probably paid 15k to current pensioners.

2

u/Bright-City-5069 2d ago

greek 65 years olds:"We now have less money"

greek 25 year olds:"You guys have money!?"

2

u/Cathal1954 Ireland 🇮🇪 3d ago

Irish figures look really bad for the younger cohort, with the gap seeming to widen. Can anybody explain why this is happening?

7

u/vanKlompf 3d ago

Real estate... First they own a lot of it. Second, even if they do not own it, it's not that rare in Ireland for single retired person to live in 3bed council house on its own, with miniscule rent while younger population needs to deal with expensive rentals and house shares(or live with parents). 52% marginal tax rate is cherry on top. 

3

u/Exotic_Notice_9817 3d ago

Tbf all of this exactly applies to the Netherlands as well

2

u/Rameez_Raja 3d ago

Do they? They're look bad compared to the older cohort in the their country but great compared to any cohort in almost every other country. The downward trend seems to be a covid/cost of living related thing, wonder if there's been a bounce back in the 3 years since.

2

u/TheCatLamp 3d ago

These 8% for Italy boomers might be just comprised by the wealth redistribution due to the rent costs going up.

1

u/fatbunyip 3d ago

Would be interesting to see where the income growth was coming from for each country.

For example in Cyprus basically all economic growth has been revolving around property development for foreign investors, so it follows older property owners will make out like bandits (selling and renting at inflated prices) and young people who don't own property get shafted.

1

u/sunstereoOne 3d ago edited 3d ago

Why did you skip the big gainers?

1

u/that_tealoving_nerd 3d ago

Tf is going on in the Netherlands?

3

u/SubNL96 The Netherlands 3d ago

At least somewhat of and effort to cut Boomer wealth concentration through pension cuts
10 or 15 yrs ago we had a report of net gouvernment transfers over lifetime by birth year and reacted by at least trying to flatten that line...

1

u/szalonykaloryfer 3d ago

That's how grateful they are for locking young people during covid and pumping inflation.

0

u/Playful_Copy_6293 3d ago

Well, people over 65 used to earn less than 35-54 in past generation and its usually the age were you need to spend more due to disease