Social Security will add years of contribution to improve the retirement pension to workers who would have had contracts with less than 5 days

Social security allows to add days or years of extra contribution to workers who had worked with short -lived labor contracts or better known as ‘minijobs’. In this way, workers with more irregular work careers can access the retirement pension easier, as well as increase the percentage of the regulatory base, which will involve charging greater amount.

This is so since the General Law of Social Security is regulated in its article 249 bis and allows it to benefit, in addition to the retirement pension, the rest of the benefits such as temporary disability, widowhood, orphanhood or in favor of relatives. Thus, instead of counting every day worked as a single quotation day, the law applies a multiplier coefficient so that this time has a greater weight when requesting a benefit.

This system allows “to promote” the calculation of days quoted in very short labor relations, thus avoiding that the precariousness of these contracts criminalizes future access to system protection. To understand it better, if a worker is hired for 5 days, in order to prove the contribution periods for a benefit, Social Security will not compute 5 days, but 7 (result of applying the multiplier of 1.4).

How adds social security days

This increased calculation is regulated in article 249 bis of the General Social Security Law and its operation is simple. The standard establishes that in temporary contracts whose effective duration is equal to or less than five days, every day of work will be considered as 1.4 days of contribution.

In this way, Social Security will help workers with more irregular contribution careers, such as short -lived contracts or better known as “minijobs” to meet the access requirements to the retirement pension. Now and very important, although the regulatory base will not increase, it will increase the percentage to which you are entitled depending on the quoted years, since according to Law 27/2011, the more worker will be the percentage.

What is this computation for and who affects?

Unlike other mechanisms, this serves to increase and prove the minimum quoted years required to access the retirement tax pension, that is, to prove the generic lack (which are 15 years throughout working life) and the specific lack (which of the total of years are at least two within the last 15 years). In addition, it can be used for other benefits such as permanent disability, death and survival (widowhood and orphanhood), temporary disability and birth and care of the child.

Now, there are exceptions. According to article 249 bis, this forecast does not apply to workers with part-time contracts, part-time relay, or to the fixed-discontinuous ones, who have their own computation rules.

On the other hand, we should not confuse it with those known as “integration of lagoons” (which only affects the amount of the wage earning pension) or with the “fictitious contributions” (periods recognized as quoted by law, such as the care of children or military service, which do help to meet the access to retirement access). The increased calculation for ‘minijobs’ is a specific and different mechanism, designed to combat the precariousness of the shortest hiring.

A practical example

To understand it better, we go with a practical example. Let’s think of Marta, who has quoted a total of 30 years of real work throughout her working life. Of those 30 years, 25 has worked with indefinite contracts and the other 5 years (equivalent to 1,825 days of real work) have accumulated them through multiple contracts of very short duration (equal to or less than 5 days) in the cultural sector.

With 30 years of real contribution, Marta would be entitled to 85.18% of the regulatory base. Now, if we applied the mechanism of article 249 bis, 5 years (1,825 days) worked with short contracts, those days would multiply by 1.4 for computer purposes (1,825 real days x 1.4 = 2,555 computable days). Now, if we add everything (9,125 days of the 25 years + 2,555 computable days = 11,680 total computable days) would result in 32 years of contribution.

In this way, it would be entitled to 89.74% of its regulatory base, that is, almost 5% more and that would be for a lifetime, affecting both the pension and its extraordinary payments.

Although Marta is going to collect a percentage equivalent to 32 years of work, the regulatory base (the average of her salaries of the last 25 years) will be calculated using only the contributions of her 30 years of real work. The “extra” years that have been added are “fictitious days” that exist to improve the percentage, but do not have an associated salary that can inflate the average of their regulatory base. Therefore, the amount of his pension will be 89.74% of the average of what he quoted during his 30 real years of work.