The specialist in pension issues, Eugenio Semino, stated yesterday The Tribune of Jujuy that “Anses is no longer delivering shifts even though the new Bases Law has not been sanctioned.” In addition, he added that with the elimination of the moratorium, retirees who do not complete the years of contributions “will not have the right to a pension either” and stated that the bonus of $70 thousand for those with the minimum “has 11% less purchasing power than last month.
How did the approval of the Bases in Deputies law take place and how much will it affect retirees?
Beyond being one of the central issues in Argentina, with people who have been immersed in a humanitarian crisis for a year and a half, the Bases law does not address the need to recompose the assets of retirees and pensioners. Today a retiree does not cover even a third of his or her financial needs. This issue has not been included in the Bases law, despite the fact that it has been discussed in the National Congress for four months without any results. What was included is the repeal of the moratorium for retirees.
The repeal of the pension moratorium was one of the most controversial issues…
Regardless of what we think about the moratorium, since 2005 I have been saying that it cannot be financed by the system itself. This generated that from a pension pyramid today we have a great plateau where everyone is immersed in misery. The law that is still in force includes women who, from the age of 60, could buy their debt and enter ordinary retirement. The majority of the deputies who voted for that law years ago voted for its repeal on Tuesday, while the law has an expiration date of March 2025. On the other hand, this implies that women who are not going to be able to retire at As of the enactment of this law, they will have to wait until they are 65 years old to access a universal benefit, which is equivalent to 80% of the minimum salary. If that woman at age 65 does not have the years of contributions, which happens in 90% of cases, what is recognized is the number of years contributed, adding one and a half more points to that minimum for each year she has . What they will not have is the right to a pension.
Can it be stated that, in fact, there is an increase in the retirement age?
Yes of course. The conclusion of all this is that women only at the age of 64 have a high percentage of thirty years of contributions, before the age of 60 almost no woman reaches those 30 years. And this is growing as a function of informality, not only for women but also for men.
The President publicly boasts of being reducing the deficit with the liquidation of pensions, how do you feel when you hear that?
What is happening while all these things are being discussed is serious. One of the topics that was debated a lot was the Income Tax, which is important for 800 thousand people, however I spoke of 8 million retirees and pensioners who not only do not collect Income, but also cannot live. While all this time passes, assets continue to be liquefied. Starting today (yesterday) the minimum retirement benefits will go to $190 thousand and repeat for the third consecutive month the bonus of $70 thousand for those in the minimum, which is five million. The readjustment that will take place from today (yesterday), corresponding to 11% of the CPI for March, is exclusively on credit but does not include the bonus, which is why the bonus has 11% less purchasing power than last month .
How much do you think the increase in pensions should be so that they do not continue to lose purchasing power?
Historically, we take as a reference the basic needs coverage basket of the retiree. That basket was published in March with February prices and was at $685 thousand, so if we weight it with inflation at a general level, today it comfortably exceeds $700 thousand. Imagine that the average amount retirees are earning is $350,000, and with that it is impossible to survive.
What would be the way to make the system sustainable over time without liquefying the income of retirees?
The first thing to do is accept the crisis of the system, which we remember is historical. It changed from public to private and from private to public and the results are visible. I was talking about the moratoriums, in 2005 2.5 million new retirees entered as a result of the 2001 crisis, the issue is that at that time and continues to be the issue today is who financed it. This is an issue that people needed but that the pension system could not respond to, except as it is doing now with increasingly poor salaries. The issue of financing is what should be discussed now. The system has two sources of financing. Half comes from the contributions of workers, something that has already changed in the world since the forms of production changed, and Argentina continues with a traditional criterion that no longer exists. We went from intensive labor to Artificial Intelligence. In the world, the most sustainable regimes incorporated financing through oil, mining and financial revenues.
This change in the rules of the game endangers the predictability of many people who planned their lives to retire at age 60…
This has been a violation of an expected right that retirees had, because Anses is no longer providing shifts even though the new law has not been sanctioned. We suggest that the person not ask for that appointment and send a telegram stating that they are not allowed to request the appointment. There is something very perverse, the appointments are requested digitally and the system is collapsed, but it does not leave any record that a person wanted to request the appointment.
