Mütterrente II: Payment delayed until 2028 - Background

Around 10 million women who had children before 1992 are waiting for the Mütterrente III (Mother's Pension III) announced by the federal government. The law will provide them with a very specific increase in their pension: For each child, they receive an additional half pension point, which, based on current figures, amounts to around €20 more in pension per month. However, mothers won't receive their first payment until 2028, according to the draft legislation from the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, which has been obtained by the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND).

The reason lies with the German Pension Insurance, which, according to its own statements, needs around two years to technically implement the pension adjustment. The chairwoman of the Federal Executive Board of the German Pension Insurance, Anja Piel, recently attempted to explain it this way: "The programming required for implementation cannot be based on the programming of the already implemented Mütterrenten I and II (Mother's Pensions I and II). This is due to the fact that there have been several legislative changes in recent years that now need to be taken into account."

The new government wants to adjust the mother's pension so that in the future, all parents will receive three pension points per child. Who does this affect? ​​And is a new application necessary? Overview of questions and answers.

What seems particularly complicated is that the Mütterrente III (Mother's Pension III) affects approximately ten million existing pension accounts. Depending on the date of retirement, different legal bases apply to pension calculations, which significantly complicates the programmers' work. It's easier for the pension insurance company to implement an adjustment for the future.

Accordingly, the current draft law only plans for an additional annual expenditure of 5 billion euros from 2028 onwards, which the Mütterrente III will cost taxpayers.

This is met with incomprehension by many. Verena Bentele, president of Germany's largest social welfare association, the VdK, said in an interview with the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (Editorial Network Germany): "We need faster solutions for the mother's pension than the ones currently on the table." She announced that the VdK would be exploring options for a low-bureaucracy implementation in discussions with the Ministry and the pension insurance agency in the coming weeks. "We're thinking here of women with very small pensions who need improvements quickly," Bentele said.

The delay is also causing anger within the CSU, which had pushed for Mütterrente III (Mother's Pension III) in the coalition negotiations: "It's impossible to explain to anyone why the pension insurance system needs two years to technically implement a law," said Klaus Holetschek, chairman of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament. He demanded that Labor Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) speed up the "administrative apparatus." "We will not tolerate delaying tactics at the expense of millions of women in our country."

The German Pension Insurance rejected the idea of ​​paying out the Mütterrente III (mother's pension) for two years retroactively in 2028. According to Piel, this would lead to "significant problems." "In this case, all social benefits with which there are interactions would also have to be recalculated."

For example, if a woman receives a widow's pension, the amount depends on her own old-age pension. If the Mütterrente III (Mother's Pension III) were paid retroactively, benefits from the widow's pension would have to be reclaimed in return. The situation is similar for female pensioners who also receive social benefits such as housing allowance.

Women – and, to a lesser extent, men – who became parents before 1992 benefit from Mütterrente III. Currently, they only receive 2.5 pension points per child for raising children. In the future, this will increase to three pension points – the same number as parents whose children were born after 1992. Starting July 1, one pension point corresponds to a monthly pension of €40.79.

With this adjustment, the Federal Government wants to value older mothers who often had to forego a full-time job and thus pension entitlements for many years because childcare was significantly worse before 1992 than it is today.

The draft bill for the 2025 pension package is expected to be approved by the Cabinet this summer and subsequently debated in the Bundestag and Bundesrat. The federal government intends to complete the legislative process this year, also so that the German Pension Insurance Fund can begin the necessary reprogramming of its systems.

The reform is largely uncontroversial within the governing coalition, but there is criticism from the business community. Employers' Association President Rainer Dulger recently demanded that further expansion of the mother's pension be halted, if only because of its high costs. Contrary to claims, the Mother's Pension III does not close any gap in equity. "Rather, the opposite is the case: Mothers whose children were born before 1992 will in future be given preferential treatment over all other mothers because, in addition to the full mother's pension, they also benefit from other pension advantages that have long since been abolished," said Dulger.