German Courts Reaffirm Disability-Pension Rules and Pre-2020 WfbM Grundsicherung Presumption
New summaries explain how persuasive psychiatric findings plus case timing decide entitlements across Germany’s overlapping benefit systems.
Overview
- Statutory thresholds remain decisive: full pension for capacity under three hours daily, partial for three to under six, and no pension from six hours, measured against any job in the general labor market.
- The LSG Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (L 9 SO 44/18) confirmed that entrants in a workshop for people with disabilities were legally presumed permanently fully impaired for Grundsicherung during the entry and training phases under the pre-2020 rule.
- Under that prior regime the social welfare office did not need a pension-insurance assessment, and courts rejected referrals to Bürgergeld when the presumption applied.
- A separate Sozialgericht Nordhausen ruling (S 20 R 1842/13) granted a time-limited full disability pension after crediting a detailed psychiatric-psychosomatic report over conflicting opinions, fixing the onset in August 2014 and awarding benefits from March 2015 to February 2017.
- People born before 2 January 1961 keep an occupation-based disability test that often turns on acceptable alternative jobs, with generally lower benefits than modern full disability pensions.