Application, entitlement, amount & additional income

First of all, it’s about the amount of contributions in the 35 (or more) years of contributions. The following applies here: For each year in which you pay into the pension fund, there are a certain number of points (pay points). The amount of earnings points depends on how much you have earned in a year. Because: As you earn, the contribution you pay into your pension fund also increases. You get a full point for every year in which you have earned as much as the average German and therefore paid an average contribution. If the salary is lower, there is less than one point. An example: If you earned half of the average, you only paid about half in contributions. So there are 0.5 points. In order to be entitled to the basic pension, you must have earned more than 30 but less than 80 percent on average in all relevant contribution years. So you have to get more than 0.3 but less than 0.8 points per year. Years in which you received less than 0.3 points are excluded. This can happen, for example, with mini-jobbers.