In Spain, the retirement age is increasing every year and will continue to do so until 2027, when it will be 67 years old, with the possibility of retiring at 65 years old for those workers who are 38 years and 6 months old. Sometimes workers are fired on the verge of retirement and have to choose to retire early and have their pension penalized or try to look for a new job at the age of 60.
Social Security applies reducing coefficients to all early retirements, whether voluntary or involuntary. These coefficients can reach up to 30% (one third of the pension), in the case of advances for reasons beyond the control of the worker. This percentage varies depending on the months advanced with respect to the ordinary age, the total years of contributions and the type of early retirement.
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In this situation is Pilar Vaquerizo Pascual, a 65-year-old retiree who had to retire early and forcibly, that is, beyond her control. As he explains in a video uploaded to the ASJUBI40 platform, he worked “for 44 years and 314 days” and, after an ERE (Employment Regulation File), he had no choice but to retire. Even so, despite her long working life, Social Security penalized her “with 24% after an unfair ERE that they gave us,” according to what she says.
“There is no right to be treated like this. We were children who started working at 14, 15 and 16 years old and we are children of post-war children,” he denounces. Despite the penalty applied by Social Security, there is the fact that, as he describes it, it is “a penalty for life.” That is why he calls for “eliminating the coefficients now, whatever government it may be.”
On this topic, the Plenary Session of the Congress of Deputies approved this Thursday a proposal from Unidas Podemos that urges the Government to undertake the necessary legislative reforms to eliminate the reducing coefficients in the early retirements of those who have contributed for more than 40 years, whether in their current or future retirement.
This comes after an urgent question from Podemos to the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, denouncing that the Law penalizes workers who, even having contributed more than the years necessary for 100% of the pension (36 years and six months, and these are 40 years old), decide to advance their retirement, which the Ione Belarra group considers a “discrimination” that must be corrected.
For her part, Minister Elma Saiz defended the reform of the pension system initiated in the previous legislature, Law 21/2021, endorsing that these penalties continue to be applied because, as she recalled, the decree seeks to strengthen the public pension system and includes a financial supplement for early retirements between January 2002 and December 2021 in cases of long contribution periods.
He explained that, to access this supplement, at least 45 years and six months of contributions must be proven or, if the pension is less than 900 euros (as of January 1, 2022), a minimum of 40 years, and he estimated the recognized supplements at 104,000. The law itself, in its first additional provision, specifies that those who can prove 44 years and six months of contributions or 40 years when the recognized pension is less than 900 euros per month may access it (reference January 1, 2022).
Unidas Podemos, through the ASJUBI40 association, denounces that there are more than 900,000 people affected, many of them fired at the age of 60 and forced to retire early with cuts of up to almost a third of their pension, and forced the vote “so that the PSOE can portray itself”; Finally, the socialists have voted in favor of modifying the law, aligning themselves with their partners and against the criteria set forth by their own minister.