Germany’s Mütterrente is a poor way to pay parents
A recession is not the time to raise benefits for those who had kids long ago
GERMANY’S constitutional debt brake has led to chronic underinvestment, so Friedrich Merz’s move to exempt both a €500bn ($539bn) infrastructure fund and defence expenditure over 1% of GDP is good news. But the looser purse strings of Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting have emboldened the parties in his expected coalition to offer goodies to voters. One is likely to be an expansion of the Mütterrente (”mothers’ pension”), a benefit to compensate parents for years spent raising children rather than working. It is almost exclusively claimed by women.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The mysterious Mütterrente”
Europe
April 5th 2025- Marine Le Pen’s ban polarises France
- The prospect of early elections in Ukraine has everyone in a spin
- Russia’s army is being subordinated to its security services
- Irish willingness to join NATO could ease unification
- Germany’s Mütterrente is a poor way to pay parents
- Europe cannot fathom what Trumpian America wants from it
From the April 5th 2025 edition
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Russia continues to rain down death on Ukrainian cities
Soldiers can hold the line, but drones and missiles are killing civilians
The thing about Europe: it’s the actual land of the free now
Europe’s very real problems don’t look so bad by comparison
Spanish morgues are straining to identify migrants
For those who drown trying to reach Europe, the freezers are full
Turkey’s government is trying to repress its way out of a crisis
Protests against the arrest of an opposition leader continue to boil
Germany’s new centrist government is reassuring but bland
Friedrich Merz’s promises to transform the country have been scaled back
The EU’s response to Donald Trump’s tariffs seems to work
The world’s biggest trade bloc takes its time and uses its weight