I don’t want to turn this into a political discussion, but isn’t that the same reason why a certain party has as many voters as it has now?
Hard to turn that into a political discussion when you don‘t even name that party.
My gut feeling somehow tells me it‘s not the Green party though.
Hand aufs Herz - wann haben Sie das letzte Mal Ihren jährlichen Pensionskassenausweis angeschaut? Falls Sie jetzt antworten: «Das ist lange her» oder «noch nie», dann sind Sie nicht allein.
83 Prozent der Schweizer Bevölkerung geht es ähnlich: Sie wissen nicht, wie hoch ihr aktuelles Pensionskassenvermögen ist. Das zeigt die Studie «Fairplay in der beruflichen Vorsorge» von Zurich und Vita. Die Studie zeigt ausserdem, dass 57 Prozent der Schweizer Bevölkerung nicht wissen, dass das in der Pensionskasse angesparte individuelle Altersguthaben ihnen gehört.
(Newsletter from a financial company)
Speaking of pension funds: I wonder how many people have only the mandatory part of their salaries covered despite earning more.
I know of a few cases, and they don’t know what it means.
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Not even speaking about people working less than 100%. A lot of pension funds don’t adjust the coordination deduction to the working rate
What do you mean? I think the “coordination deduction” is fixed by legislation and it’s not up to pension funds to decide anything about it.
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If you work part-time and earn 50k, only 25k will be insured. So not a lot of contributions.
Some funds have no coordination contribution and some other funds adjust the contribution to the working rate.
The current deduction of coordination is 25’725.-
Let’s assume the salary is 60k at 100%, and 30k at 50%. An employee works at 50% and his age is 35. The pension fund employer part is 5% and the employee 5% (a total of 10%).
Fund 1 (Not adjusting the deduction of coordination):
30’000-25’725=4275.-
The contribution each year in the pension fund will be 4’275*0.1=427
Fund 2 (adjusting the deduction of coordination):
30’000-25’725 * 0.5=17’137.-
The contribution each year in the pension fund will be 17’137*0.1=1’713
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25‘725.
It‘s 2023 already. 
The law defines a legal minimum (and maximum). Pension funds can operate quite freely within these boundaries, as long as the general principles are adhered to.
Let’s keep in mind that this is only the minimum old-age savings contribution. The contribution could also be higher than 10% - in fact, it usually will be, since there‘s also be risk premiums and management/administration costs to cover.
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Is the coordination deduction a common thing? I have never had that applied to my BVG, I guess that is a good thing?
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While pension funds are pretty regulated, there are still several options to offer a better pension fund for employees. For example:
- Starting to contribute sooner than 25 (there are several that start at 20)
- Insure more than the mandatory amount (>61k)
- Contribute a higher % than mandatory required
- Decrease the „Koordinationsabzug“ of 25k or even abolish it completely (some pension funds have special regulations like „if you earn less than 86k, 20-30% of your salary will be your Koordinationsabzug“ which is great for part-time or low-income employees)
- Completely cover all risk-insurance related parts and thus 100% of the contributions/deductions are going into wealth-building
- Many more…
So lets compare 2 completely different pension funds and 2 different employees in their early 30s. Pension fund A does the legal minimum and pension fund B doesn‘t have a Koordinationsabzug, insures the total salary and contributions are 6% by employee and 9% by employer instead of 3.5/3.5% (legal minimum for 25-34 year olds). Jonas is earning 140k and works 100%. Sarah is earning 50k and works 60%. Total yearly contributions:
Jonas at pension fund A: 4.3k
Jonas at pension fund B: 21k
Sarah at pension fund A: 1.7k
Sarah at pension fund B: 7.5k
These aren‘t just imaginary pension funds. These are real-world examples I‘m encountering every week in my job.
The biggest problem with pension fund A isn‘t even low contributions, it‘s low insured salaries. Invalidity rent is 65% of your insured salary. So it makes a huge difference how much is insured. Especially for Jonas with his 140k salary where pension fund A would only pay 40k/year in case of invalidity compared to the 91k of pension fund B.
So chose your employer wisely. It‘s not only about the salary.
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Wow I find it concerning and it reinforces the need for an obligatory pension contribution as we have here in CH.
Just a side note, the Federal Council estimated that 12% of the population was on the strict obligatory scheme LPP, and 20% highly depends on the minimal conversion factor, as their over-obligatory part is rather small :
Environ 12 % des assurés sont couverts par des plans de
prévoyance fondés uniquement sur le minimum légal, et environ 20 % des assurés
sont fortement concernés par le taux de conversion minimal, car seule une faible part
de leur avoir de vieillesse relève du régime surobligatoire.
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What about the 1st pillar? Is there an easy way (i.e. without having to send letters etc.) to understand how much you have accumulated in benefits as of TODAY?
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You don’t have to send a letter but you do actively have to request a statement of your individual account and you’ll have to wait for the statement to arrive by mail: Statement of the individual account | Leaflets & forms | Information Center OASI/DI
The statement doesn’t include an estimate of your future benefits, however, there is an online calculator for this: Online pension estimate (ESCAL) | Leaflets & forms | Information Center OASI/DI
SVA ZH recommends requesting a statement every 3-5 years. It’s free as long as you wait at least 6 months between requests.
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Well for one thing the students are going to be voters one day and it would be nice if they don’t just eat up any bullshit economic plan the politicians are peddling.
Financial awareness in society may be lacking but sometimes I wonder about financial prowess of governments and central banks
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Researchers found a distinct Swissness factor in investment decisions when comparing Swiss-Germans to Germans, Swiss-French to French and Swiss-Italians to Italians.
Based on a large international survey we analyze how German- French- and Italian-speaking Swiss differ in their investment decision behavior and investment competence as compared to their closest neighbors abroad speaking the same language. Although language may be closer to the individual self than the country of residence, we find that there are greater similarities in the decision behavior of Swiss speaking different languages than between Swiss and their linguistically closest neighbors abroad. These similarities hold also for the emotional investment competence and to some extend also for the knowledge-based competence. We conclude that there is Swissness in the decision behavior as well as in the emotional investment competence. The latter is associated with regional differences in the relationship to investment advisors.
Well, I would expect the tax system and the available vehicles to play a greater role in investing decisions than language, and also for the educational system, wealth level and general society to also play a big role in “emotional decisions” and financial knowledge so I am not very surprised.
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