Retirement age

Retiring too early costs billions

The "Krone" has reported: Pensioners face losing up to 8000 euros under the blue-black government. If life expectancy increases, people should also work longer. But there is hardly any other country where the actual retirement age is so far apart from the actual retirement age. If everyone retired at the current standard retirement age, this would save 10 billion euros a year in one fell swoop.

Austria has a particularly expensive pension system; in terms of economic output, it is the fourth most expensive system in the EU. Other welfare states such as Sweden need significantly less, where 7.4 percent of GDP is spent on pensions, compared to 13.7 percent in Austria. The reason for this is that people there work longer and their actual retirement age is closer to the statutory age. In Austria, the average retirement age for men is around 62, for women it is 60.