2023-09-23 00:33:17
Saturday, September 23, 2023, 00:33
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A Spanish pensioner earns an average of 1,195 euros per month, according to the latest Social Security statistics available, dated August 1. The calculation includes all types of contributory benefits (retirement, permanent disability, widowhood, orphanhood and in favor of family members) and regimes (general, self-employed, sea workers, coal mining, etc.).
So you can find enormous differences between, for example, the pension of a worker in the general regime (salaried) and that of a self-employed person. This is precisely what Upta denounces. This association, one of the most representative of the group, highlights that the average pension of a self-employed person in Spain is 823 euros, while that of employees amounts to 1,307 euros.
The difference, of 484 euros, is even greater if the retirement benefits of both groups are compared. A retiree from the general regime receives an average of 1,532 euros, 616 euros more than what a self-employed person earns (916 euros).
That range, of 40%, is even higher in Euskadi: a Basque retiree from the general regime earns an average of 1,927 euros per month, 68.7% more than the self-employed (they receive 1,094 euros). And the Basque Country is the only autonomous community in which the average retirement pension of this group exceeds 1,000 euros.
“Painful” situation
Upta denounces that the situation of the almost two million Spanish self-employed pensioners is “absolutely painful”, and considers that living with their current benefits is “a real miracle.” The rising cost of living in recent years has reduced pensions to almost “the poverty threshold, quantified at 10,888 euros per year in 2022.”
A situation produced, “in most cases”, as a consequence of “the low capacity to generate economic resources of at least 50% of the self-employed who are today pensioners.”
The president of Upta, Eduardo Abad, explains that “more than 800,000 self-employed pensioners have not been able to contribute more in their last stage of their professional career.” Furthermore, the brick crisis that began in 2008 “has been a catastrophe for thousands of self-employed workers who are now pensioners.”
That is why they will ask the Government to increase the next pension increases “to a greater extent for the lowest contributors.” Specifically, Abad believes it is necessary that in the next four years the group of pensioners with salaries less than 800 euros per month on average “will be increased, at least, by 5% more than the rest.”
“Only in this way will we be able to break the gap that exists in the lowest pensions and improve the situation of people who are in a dramatic situation,” he adds.
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