At the other end of the scale, no more than 2% of retirees in Germany, Hungary, Japan and the Slovak Republic receive targeted or minimum pensions. But this is not a good measure of adequacy of these benefits. Taxes and contributions payable on earnings are very likely to make a difference to the comparison of living standards on safety-net retirement benefits compared with those of workers. Higher contributory minimum pensions average 33% of net earnings and only 25% of gross.