Pensioners: where are they the richest in the European Union?

Pension reform continues to be debated. The flagship measure of Emmanuel Macron’s second five-year term is much criticized. It consists of raising the legal retirement age from 62 to 65. Indeed, according to the Ifop barometer for Altaprofits*, transcribed on BFMTV, only 11% of French people are in favor of retirement at the age desired by President Emmanuel Macron. Additionally, of those surveyed, 73% believe the ideal time is at age 62 or younger.

Is France a bad student in this area? According to the All Europe site, the legal retirement age in Germany or Italy is, for example, 67. In the Netherlands, it is 66 years and 4 months.

In addition, another difference is established according to the countries of the European Union (EU): the wealth of retirees. Uncorrelated with working time, it is quite unequal depending on the country.

Planet has produced the slideshow below, created using Eurostat data. It ranks 20 countries of the European Union according to the rate of retirees with an average salary below 60% of the median salary in 2021. This corresponds to the poverty line considered by the Directorate General for Information and Community Statistics.

The least that can be said is that the difference in standard of living is eloquent between certain countries. This is the case of Latvia which shows up to 50.9% of pensioners living below this threshold, Estonia (47.6%), Lithuania (38.8%), Bulgaria (34.7% ) or Croatia (29.7%). While others are far below them…

*Survey carried out online from April 19 to 27, 2022 with a sample of 2,405 people representative of the French population aged 18 and over, and constituted according to the quota method