Pension reform Minimum pensions may not be less than 14,300 euros and will rise each year to adapt to the poverty line

The Government has yielded to pressure on the unions and has included in the pension reform a modification with respect to its initial text which stipulates that the minimum contributory retirement pensions for people over 65 years of age with a dependent spouse may not be less from from the year 2027 to the equivalent of about 14,300 euros today

Pension reform Minimum pensions may not be less than 14,300 euros and will rise each year to adapt to the poverty line

The Government has yielded to pressure on the unions and has included in the pension reform a modification with respect to its initial text which stipulates that the minimum contributory retirement pensions for people over 65 years of age with a dependent spouse may not be less from from the year 2027 to the equivalent of about 14,300 euros today.

This is included in the fifty-third additional provision of the latest version of the draft of the royal decree-law, to which EL MUNDO has had access, and which states that once the minimum pensions have been increased according to the CPI, they may not be less than the threshold of poverty calculated for a household composed of two adults.

This threshold is calculated in the Household Living Conditions Survey, published annually by the National Statistics Institute (INE), but it only does so for households of one person or two adults and two children. Therefore, the decree stipulates that "for the determination of this poverty threshold, the threshold corresponding to a single-person household will be multiplied by 1.5, updated up to the corresponding year."

According to this Survey, in 2021 - the latest data available - the poverty threshold for a one-person household was set at 9,535.2 euros, with which, multiplied by 1.5, the minimum pensions could not be less than 14,300 euros this year. In practice, this amount will be higher, since this threshold will be raised year by year. In fact, the objective of the unions was that it was a limit close to the Minimum Interprofessional Wage (SMI), now set at 15,120 euros.

This 2023, the minimum pension is 10,963 euros per year for pensioners over 65 years of age and 13,527 when there is a dependent spouse.

In the event that there is a gap between that recommended level and the real average of the minimum pensions, the Government will have to gradually reduce it with additional annual increases.

On January 1, 2024, the minimum pensions will have to rise additionally to reduce that gap by 20%; on January 1, 2025, what is necessary to cut the difference by 30%; on January 1, 2026, to drop 50%; and on January 1, 2027, the gap should be completely eliminated so that pensions are not less than the minimum pension, that is, today's 14,300 euros.

In its initial proposal, the Government wanted to set that limit from which the minimums could not fall at 60% of the median income.

The minimum pensions for widows with family responsibilities and contributory pensions with spouses under the age of 60 -except for permanent disability- will also have to be from 2024 equal to the reference amount; while the rest of the minimum contributory pensions, once revalued, will increase each year "in a percentage equivalent to 50% of the percentages set for the minimums".

On the other hand, the non-contributory minimum pensions, once revalued, will increase each year in the same way as the contributory ones, but instead of multiplying the poverty threshold of a single-person household by 1.5 to find out what minimum they should reach, that figure will be multiply by 0.75. In this case, with data from 2021, they would have to be at least 7,151 euros.

The General State Budgets (PGE) for each year must set these amounts using the INE's Living Conditions Survey.

In addition to this modification, the unions have also managed to get the Executive to eliminate from the decree the power that it granted to the PGE to set each year the salary limit on which the new 'solidarity surcharge' will be applied, that is, that new additional contribution -which will be 6%: 1% for the worker and 5% for the company- and which will be applied to the salary that is above the maximum base, once increased.

It is not included, therefore, in the norm in which salary bracket that 6% will be applied, with what it could be for the entirety of it.

"The amount of the remuneration referred to in article 147, which exceeds the amount of the maximum contribution base established in the regimes for employed persons of the Social Security system to which said article is applicable. , will be subject, in all payment of quotas, to an additional solidarity contribution of 6 percent, with the employer being responsible for 5 percent and the worker 1 percent, not computable for the purposes of benefits ", the norm picks up.

UGT and CCOO are holding internal meetings this morning with their confederal bodies to approve the latest reform proposal agreed on Tuesday with the Ministry of Social Security. Late in the morning, the minister José Luis Escrivá will appear together with Pepe Álvarez, general secretary of the UGT, and Unai Sordo, his CCOO counterpart, to explain the agreement and, in the afternoon, he will go to Congress to report on the reform to the Toledo Pact Commission. Tomorrow, predictably, the Government will hold an extraordinary council of ministers to approve the rule via royal decree-law, which will then have to be processed in Parliament.

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