pension

34 elderly Dutch people are receiving a supplementary pension from Germany for their years of service with the Waffen-SS, an armed wing of the Nazi Party's SS organization, current affairs program EenVandaag reports based on its own research.

Most Dutch people are not building sufficient financial buffers for a financially healthy future, Rabobank concludes based on a study by Nibud. Only two in five Dutch put money aside for training, income decreases, pensions, or healthcare, ANP reports.

Nibud questioned 2 thousand people for this study. Nearly half of respondents indicated that they are concerned about money matters in the future, yet most do nothing about it. Around a third don't have the money to set aside. But of the two thirds who do have financial room to set money aside, only 39 percent actually do so. 

Less than 20 percent of the 873 thousand freelancers and self-employed in the Netherlands have insurance against occupational disability, according to figures by Statistics Netherlands and TNO. 70 percent of this group don't have insurance because they can't afford it. 

A quarter of this group say they can carry this risk by themselves and just over 20 percent can fall back on their partner's income. 14 percent don't have insurance because they don't trust insurers. This is especially common in the construction industry, according to the stats office.

About 1,500 psychiatrists working at 41 mental health institutions went on strike on Tuesday in protest against their pension plans. They want their employers to pay the employer's contribution to their pension plans, which they've been withholding for two years, ANP reports.

For the strike the psychiatrists worked on a weekend schedule on Tuesday, only giving emergency treatments. All regular treatments and sessions were canceled. According to the psychiatrists, this was the first time they took action against their employers. They felt they have no other choice.

Nibud is concerned about the financial situation of future pensioners. The combination of the rising cot of living and the current group of freelancers and entrepreneurs building less pension, leads the institute to expect that the current under-65-year-olds will soon have a quarter too little pension

Nearly 40 percent of Dutch pensioners are struggling to get by on their retirement income, according to a survey done by interest association ANBO among 9 thousand retirees

For 553 thousand of the more than 1.35 million freelancers in the Netherlands, the money they earn as a freelancer is a sideline income. The bulk of their income consists of wages, pension or benefit, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Wednesday.

On Monday the Public Prosecutor demanded a prison sentence of 367 days and 3 years of probation against a 56 year old woman from Rijnsaterwoude who is charged with driving her mother's dead body out of the country and hiding it.

According to Statistics Netherlands, the average retirement age increased further in 2014 to 64.1 years. That is 0.2 years higher than in 2013 and 0.5 years higher than in 2012.

Freelancers should be obliged to save for their own retirement and company employees should be given more power over the amount of their pensions, writes the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) as a contribution to the national pension debate.

According to a study carried out by Secretary of Social Affairs, Jetta Klijnsma, the Dutch knows very little about pensions, but the majority of them are concerned about the Dutch pension system, De Telegraaf reports.