Why do early retirees win? They receive a pension that is 350 euros more than those who work until the age of 66
One of the first points that the government rushed to amend as part of the pension reform was that of early retirement. The real retirement age in our country is about 64.5 years, while since January 2023 the legal retirement age that gives the right to receive 100% of the pension is 66 years and four months. In other words, the first distortion caused by the fact that the 40% of all employees Those who leave the labor market due to retirement, do so early. And so every year.
Bearing in mind that repair Social security Promoted by the current government, has its effort to balance the budget, assumes, according to the Ministry’s own calculations, that each year that the real retirement age is gained, the system deficit is reduced by 4,500 million euros, and changes on early retirement, with the aim of discouraging early exit From the labor market, it was understood as one of the critical points to be addressed between regulatory changes.
Political reason
In essence, beyond that, there is not only the normative gap that the real retirement age is lower than stipulated by law, but there is also an economic but also of course political aspect. The Ministry of Social Security had discovered before the reform that conditions for early retirement, although full of accounts, share a socio-economic pattern: higher rents Most of them leave the labor market early.
because? The answer lies in a twist on previous regulation that de facto encouraged high earners to quit their jobs the moment they could reach early retirement, two years before the legal retirement age as per the rule. In other words, for this year, those who retire early are yet to 64 years and four months.
As it is known, early retirement entails a penalty applied to the pension, which is a percentage reduction. The problem is that before the fix, it was an app cutbacks – that after making strict adjustments only in extreme cases those who decided to expect the maximum were implemented for 24 months or soon. based on quotation So that in many cases, even with the application of the higher rates of reduction provided by Social Security, those retirees continued to receive the maximum pension. In other words, the inconvenience of the system means that a retiree can push retirement up to the maximum, which is two years, without having an effective penalty on his or her benefit.
it’s not like that. With the fix, as mentioned, the transactions Although only the maximum penalties have been tightened – the new sanctions list reduces the reduction in more than 90% of cases – but it has also been stipulated that transactions apply directly to the pension amount and not on a contribution basis.
In other words, the same pensioner with a salary that exceeds the annual salary of a maximum pension (42,823 euros) This is what entitles him to receive them. Reductions will now be applied depending on the months served – the maximum reduction is 21% for those who left 24 months ago and if they do so with less than 38 years and six months of contribution – to the amount of the pension, For this reason it will be deducted from the 3059 EUR in which the maximum monthly payment of the system falls.
Economic reason
However, the system aberration seen from this point of view of organizational shortcuts is twofold. Not only does this encourage exit from the market for the group that will in many cases enjoy the maximum benefit offered by the system, but also, since these are the highest amounts, it implies a significant cost of the system. And a harsh relative grievance with his retired counterpart, but who gets the pension once he reaches the legal retirement age.
Specifically, the latest Social Security statistics show that current pension recipients between the ages of 60 and 64 receive an average of €1,882 per month, while retirees between the ages of 65 and 69 receive an average of around this time. 1533 euros per month. assumed a The difference is 349 euros And 22.7% lower benefits for those who meet the legal age, who also do so to be able to access the full payment.
The explanation is nothing but the benefit resulting from justifying the contributions made during working life and it is higher in this group of early retirees, just over 100,000 annually. However, the improvement of living conditions in old age and employment conditions for the employed, the phenomenon of early retirement He lost some weight In the last years. If there were 127,374 early withdrawals in 2012, in 2022 they affected a total of 117,397 people. In relation to the precedent, early retirements were reduced by 2.5% and by 7.8% compared to the previous ten years.
