Dear Reader,

During much of the previous decade, the Social Democrats struggled for air as they had to make do with the position of junior partner in a government dominated by Angela Merkel.

But one flagship piece of legislation that they managed to pass was the so-called “Rente mit 63” - a law that allowed people to take early retirement on a full pension after a long life of labour.

Passed in 2014, the law was controversial from the outset due to the fact that labour shortages were already appearing as visible cracks in the job market.

The SPD promised though that the law was a reward to lower-income workers who’d put in a hard shift in and who had earned the right to put their feet up early.

Or, in the words of then Labour Minister Andrea Nahles: The law is “for those who have worked hard for decades and can no longer keep going.”

A prerequisite was that only people who had worked for 45 years were eligible. In other words, you had to have started work at 18 to stop work at 63.

Well, in o…