Luis Ortiga is one of the thousands of retirees who had to retire early involuntarily after a working life in which he contributed for more than 45 years. Now, as stated in the General Social Security Law, all early retirements, whether voluntary or involuntary, carry a “penalty” in the amount of the pension. In Luis’s case, the penalty was 24% of his pension.
This is how this retiree explains it through the ASJUBI40 YouTube channel, a group that seeks to end penalties in early retirements with long contribution careers, that is, those with more than 40 years of contributions.
You may be interested
Several retirees speak clearly about retirement at age 65: “We have been working all our lives. I have worked since I was 9 years old, in agriculture.”
Podemos puts pressure on the PSOE and insists: it wants to end the penalty for early retirement with more than 40 years of contributions
Ortiga explains that in his opinion, the current system is “discriminatory” since it punishes those who have contributed the most to the system like him, who began working at the age of 14 and in many cases had to do working hours of more than 40 hours per week.
Penalties on pension of up to 30%
This retiree begins by saying that he had to take advantage of involuntary early retirement, that is, those situations beyond the worker’s control, such as dismissal. “After more than 45 years working and contributing to Social Security, I had to take involuntary early retirement and consequently lost 24% of my pension base.”
If we look at reducing coefficients table of Social Security, in the case of Luis who had more than 45 years of contributions, he had to retire at the age of 61, that is, retire at the age of 61, hence he was penalized by one of the highest coefficients.
In this sense, Luis explains that there are worse situations in which the amount of the pension can be reduced by up to 30%, which occurs when you are under 38 years and six months of contributions. Regarding this situation, he explains that “this is not an individual or strange situation within the framework of our collective, quite the contrary, it is the most normal situation.”
The General Social Security Law determines that these reducing coefficients are calculated based on the total years of contributions, the months advanced with respect to the ordinary retirement age and whether this advance payment is voluntary or involuntary. That is, the more months advanced and the fewer years of contributions, the greater the cut in the pension to be collected.
Luis explains that the majority of these penalties affect “a group that began working very young at the age of 14 or 15 and worked 42, 45 and even 48 hours a week, which today would be considered slavery.”
Now, as the retiree explains, not all workers suffer these penalties, that is, they can access 100% early retirement. “There are other groups, up to 8 special Social Security regimes, plus the State’s Passive Classes, which can benefit from early retirement under more advantageous conditions,” explains this retiree.
These “can retire at age 59 or 60 with 35 years of contributions and a full pension.” In other words, if they have that minimum contribution, they will be able to retire up to six years earlier and collect what is known as 100% of the pension, to which Luis adds, “it only has one name to define it and it is discrimination.”
When Luis talks about these regimes he makes references to arduous or dangerous jobs, which are those included in the Mining Statute, flight personnel, artists, bullfighting professionals, police, railway workers, firefighters (now includes foresters), civil servants. In addition, workers with disabilities equal to or greater than 45% (you can do so at age 56) and greater than 65% (who can do so at age 52).
Luis asks himself a question: “Why don’t they create a new special Social Security regime for people with long contribution careers so that they can also retire early with a full pension?” And he adds, “I understand that it is the fairest thing.”
Luis explains that this is not about “costs” because it is an “issue that is about equity and dignity, in short, that is about justice.” To conclude, he wants to show the injustice of those who “have participated the most and collaborated the most in the social and economic well-being of this country.”
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Social Security, so far in 2025, 155,131 people have retired, of which 44,940 correspond to early retirements. That is, almost one in three workers opt for this type of retirement.