Retirements and pensions provided by the Anses system and also non-contributory pension benefits They will have a recomposition of 11% in May. Consequently, The minimum asset will be $190,141.6 next month and the maximum asset will be $1,279,472.92 (both are raw figures and correspond to net amounts of $184,437.35 and $1,208,408.8, respectively). The readjustment of income, anticipated by LA NACION last Friday, was made official by Anses, through resolution 97 published today in the Official Gazette.
The percentage of the increase and the moment in which it will be granted arise from the provisions of the decree of necessity and urgency (DNU) 274. This rule establishes that the income of the fifth month of this year will have a nominal increase of a percentage equivalent to the variation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March, That is, an increase equal to inflation, which, as reported on Friday by Indec, was precisely 11%.
Regarding the bonus, no decision has yet been made official. The Government told LA NACION that Yes, the payment of this additional will continue in May, which only reaches those who receive the lowest salaries in the system. But it has not yet been specified whether the amounts of up to $70,000 that were in effect in March and April will continue to be paid, or if the figures will be different.
The latest official measure on the so-called “pensionary economic aid” is a decree that refers only to April payments, and establishes the payment of $70,000 for those who have pension income (for one or more benefits) of up to $171,283.31 (a figure corresponding to the minimum salary for the current month), and amounts less than $70,000 for those who earn more than the minimum salary and up to $241,283.31. In the latter cases, the difference between the gross income received and $241,283.31 is paid (for example, with an income of $200,000, the plus is $41,283.31).
Waiting for a decree
Since the decision is to continue the bonus, Another decree should be approved to specify how it will be paid in May. If the criterion adopted until now were repeated and the amount of $70,000 was not raised, it should be provided that those with incomes of up to $260,141.6 (that is what they would charge, adding the monthly salary and the bonus, those who have the minimum salary), and also that those who earn more than $190,141.6 and $260,141.6 will have an additional amount equivalent to what is necessary to complete the $260,141.6.
For now, the already mentioned 11% recomposition is defined for next month, which It will be applied to all assets of the general Anses system, whatever their value. Whoever earns, for example, $400,000 in April, will receive $444,000 in May.
One thing to keep in mind is that, as in the salary settlements for the current month of April, the entire discount for the PAMI contribution was not applied. (in fact, the discount on the amount of the 27.4% increase was not calculated), with the May salaries there will be a discount of a higher percentage than usual. That is to say, this month not everything that should be discounted is discounted (something that results in greater out-of-pocket income), and that will be corrected with the May earnings.
The 11% increase is applied to the income that is collected this month, and that They include an increase of 27.4% compared to March values. Between March, April and May, The accumulated increase will be, in this way, 79.85%, after, as the Government adjusted to comply with the formula that provides for quarterly readjustments, in January and February the amounts had remained frozen, despite inflation that accumulated 36.6% in those two months alone.
The readjustment of 79.85% is, strictly speaking, the accumulated to May since the beginning of the year. Only in the first three months inflation was 51.6%, according to the Indec report released on Friday; In March, benefits received their first increase in the year and in that month retirees were able to buy with their income, taking the Indec CPI as a reference. 16% less than what they had been able to acquire last December with what they received at that time (in February, the loss against the last month of 2023 had climbed to 26.8%).
How the increases are defined this year
The increase granted in March it was 27.18%, because that was the result of the mobility formula in force since 2021, which the Government now seeks to leave behind. For the current month of April the increase is 27.4%, an index that results from accumulating an “extraordinary increase” of 12.5% and the percentage variation of the CPI for February, which was 13.2%. And in May, as already stated, 11% will correspond.
After years of loss of purchasing power with the validity of two mobility formulas and with discretionary decisions taken in 2020 by the government of Alberto Fernández, DNU 274, of last March, establishes a new modality for updating retirements and other social benefits. The decree provides for the use of the CPI as a reference value to increase salaries monthly, replacing the mobility formula of Law 27,609, which contemplates quarterly increases, based on the variation in salaries and collections, and which has a cap that in 2023 strongly harmed retirees.
This new modality of readjustments, as established, will take effect from July. But the decree also includes provisions for a period of transition or “splice”, which will run between April and June. For that quarter, which is the current one, it was established that there will be monthly updates by CPI, in addition to the already mentioned extra increase in April. Specifically, it was decided to take as reference February inflation for the April increase, March inflation for the May readjustment, and April inflation for the June increase.
In the sixth month of the year and according to the decree, the accumulated increase between April and June will be compared with the result of the formula of law 27,609. If a higher percentage arises from this calculation, the difference will be paid to retirees. If the index, on the other hand, is lower, nothing will be modified and the given increases will be incorporated into the monthly salaries.
Although the new type of increases slows down the loss of pensions in the face of rising prices, the truth is that in recent times a very strong drop has accumulated. In the 12-month period ending in February, the real value of income fell 29%, 47% or 44%, depending on the situation regarding the bonuses: if they were received throughout the period considered (between March 2023 and last February), if they were collected for a few months and then no longer, or if there was never access to them. Between December 2019 and that month of 2023, the accumulated deterioration was between 32.4% and 44.6%.