Despite receiving a monthly pension of 2,200 euros from the sum of the retirement and widow’s pensions, Charo, 79 years old, confessed in Public Mirror which is not enough to face your day to day life.
According to her testimony, in winter, she is forced to go to bed at 7 in the afternoon to avoid the cold, claiming that she has worked all her life to have a decent present and remembering that, unlike young people, she no longer has a future, only a present.
As she explains, the pensioner’s situation is contrasted with the economic reality of the new generations. Given this, a young analyst participated in the program, who argued that, to maintain certain benefits and generous conditions for a large part of the elderly, the future of the young people themselves is being subordinated.
Faced with this situation and seeing the precariousness of the labor market, the analyst explained the impossibility of youth to save or start a solid life project, which includes basic goals such as buying a home or starting a family.
“You cannot have a generational confrontation”
Although at first the debate showed a strong gap between both realities, the participants made it clear that they were not looking for a conflict, with the pensioner interrupting to demand that “what cannot be done is a generational confrontation.”
In fact, the young analyst revealed that, before entering the set, both he and the older guests (Elena and Charo) had reached a unanimous agreement: if pensions must increase, this measure must be linked to an equivalent increase in the salaries of the young people who support said system.
Thus, in this context, the key is not whether the elderly deserve to have a good quality of life, but how it is achieved without harming the active workforce. The analyst stressed that the increase in the purchasing power of the elderly is not something negative in itself, and that I wish everyone’s could increase.
In this way, the true final objective they set is to seek a balance and ensure that the well-being of pensioners is not achieved at the cost of a drop in the purchasing power of young people.