(Adds labour minister)
BERLIN, May 6 (Reuters) - Germany's cabinet backed a change in law on Wednesday to ensure state pensions do not fall as a result of the financial crisis, seeking to ease concerns among retirees ahead of a federal election in September.
"Pensions won't be cut, you can count on that," Labour Minister Olaf Scholz said, adding that the retirement age would remain at 67.
The move to guarantee state pensions, which are linked to developments in wages in the prior year, came after the Handelsblatt business daily reported last month that they could decline in 2010 because of a drop in average wages this year.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democrats, their coalition partners, are gearing up for September's election and are keen to avoid alienating pensioners -- a big electoral group constituting around 20 million voters.
In return for the guarantee that pensions would not fall, the planned change in law allows for retirement payments to rise more slowly in future if average wages do indeed fall.
According to the plan, if wages were to fall this year, the rise in pensions would be halved in 2010.
This would continue until average real wage growth had recovered to the point where no cuts to pensions -- as prescribed by the government's mathematical model -- were necessary in theory.
Scholz did not, however, expect average wages to fall this year. (Reporting by Gernot Heller, writing by Paul Carrel, editing by Stephen Nisbet)