STATE INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 9475, 25 March 1911, Page 2

STATE INSURANCE IN GERMANY.

Germany's system of compulsory State insurance for workmen is about to be extended to brain workers, writes the London correspondent of the Age. As the law stands at present all persons of either sex over sixteen years of ago who work for wages or salary, and whose total earnings do not exceed £IOO per annum, must be insured against infirmity and old age ill the Sltate insurance officfc. The £IOO limitation practically excludes the large class who are above the status of manual workers, and it is this class which it is now proposed to include. They number millions. One section of those employees desired an extension of the existing workmen's insurance to include them, while the other section demanded a separate insurance scheme for themselves alone. The Government has decided in favour of the latter section. The new beneficiaries will embrace such em-1 ployees as managers, foreman, clerks and apprentices in business and commercial houses, apothecaries' assistants; and apprentices, persons employed on I stages and in orchestras, teachers and instructor captains, deck and ma-i chine room officers, persons entrusted with the oversight of cargo, and their asistants, employed on board ships, and others in a similar higher position, but only in so far as this employment constitutes their main vocation. These persons will be insured on completion ' of their sixteenth year, and a pension : for themselves when they are incap-! able of pursuing their vocation or have,' attained old age, and provision for' their widows and children in case of their death, will be ensured them. The incomes of the assured may bo anything up to £250 a year. The! funds are to be provided by tho em-! ployer and employee in equal shares' with a bonus added by the State. The I scale of contribution by tho person in-1 sural ranges from 13s 2d to 26a 7d per ! month ,_ the amount being deducted ' from his or her salary by the employer : and paid over to the State.