October 2020

Pensions In Spain Will Be Revalued By 0.9% In 2021

The Government is forecasting a 0.9% revaluation in public pensions in 2021, following the increase already applied this year. This would allow for ensuring pensioners’ purchasing power, as it is included in the 2021 Budget Plan which the Executive sent last Thursday to Brussels. The increase corresponds to the government’s forecast for the GDP deflator, the index closest to the CPI, for next year, which predicts a rise of 0.9%. However, the government must now negotiate this rise with...

IMF says Spain will not return to pre-pandemic levels of activity until 2023

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published its conclusions following the review of Spain's economy under Article IV that governs member states. The team led by Andrea Schaechter, head of the mission for Spain, projects an annual loss of real GDP production of 12.8% in 2020, unchanged when compared with what was already estimated at the end of June. "Spain has suffered the deepest blow in advanced economies," Schaechter acknowledged at her press conference. "It will take years...

September 2020

Spanish Government looking at incentives for delaying retirement

The Spanish Government is looking at providing incentives for those who carry on working after the age of 65 while taking steps to stop high earners from taking early retirement. Read also Greece.Pay as you go for auxiliary pensions In his appearance on Wednesday before the Toledo Pact parliamentary commission, Inclusion and Social Security minister Jose Luis Escriva said his department’s intention is to encourage people to delay their retirement. through a redesign of the extra payments for those who...

June 2020

Coronavirus impact improves sustainability of Spanish pension system

Spain saw a rare improvement in the long-term sustainability of its pension system in May, but the data gave no cause for celebration because it was mainly the result of the coronavirus crisis and increased deaths among the elderly. Read also Chile’s pension system is changing for the worse Spain has been among European countries worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic, with the death toll now at 27,127. More than 80% of fatalities have been people aged 70 and older....

May 2020

Spain: Pension Payouts And Registrations Fall After Coronavirus Crisis Hits Elderly

The coronavirus crisis has triggered an historical drop in the number of state pensions paid out in Spain in May, in part because of two months of high mortality caused by coronavirus. Read also The Game of Pension Risk Transfers Continues Some 9,754,137 contributory pensions were paid out in May, 38,508 fewer benefits than were paid out in April.The fall has triggered an unprecedented drop in Spain’s monthly pension bill. In May, it fell by 0.3% to 9.8 billion...

February 2020

Ageing, Productivity and Employment Status

By Brindusa Anghel, Aitor Lacuesta The article analyses how labour market participation and the type of work performed change with age. Drawing on data from the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), it is documented that as people age they gradually lose certain skills relating to their ability to do physical work or use new technologies, or their literacy and numeracy skills. By contrast, as they build up experience, older workers develop better planning skills...

January 2020

Spanish Government Gives Green Light To 0.9% Pension Increase

The first ministers cabinet meeting in Spain on Tuesday approved the rise in pensions by 0.9%. The increase will be applied retroactively from January 1 and will affect and will affect more than 10 million Spaniards, both contributory and non-contributory and passive class pensions. Read Also United Arab Emirates: The Introduction Of The DIFC Employee Workplace Savings Plan And Other Qualifying Schemes The 0.9% rise coincides with the average CPI estimate. If prices rise above that figure, the Government will compensate...

June 2019

The Effects of Pension-Related Policies on Household Spending

By Susana Párraga Rodríguez This paper estimates the impact of pension-related policies on household spending. The identification strategy exploits the deviation in pensioner income and expenditure caused by the introduction of a new pension system during the 1980s and 1990s in Spain and constructs a new narrative series of legislated pension changes. I present a variety of estimates, some of them imply that increases in the average pension have a roughly one-for-one effect on pensioner spending. The strongest effects...

How Much Does It Cost To Update Pensions In Spain In Line With Inflation?

One of the most controversial aspects of the 2013 reform of the Spanish system of public pensions has been the introduction of a revaluation index (the so-called IRP) which linked the updating of pensions, once triggered, to the financial situation of Social Security, thus abandoning the traditional reference to inflation measured by the consumer price index (CPI). Given the measure´s unpopularity, once inflation recovered after the crisis, it did not take long for it to be provisionally suspended. Currently,...

April 2019

The future of Spain: five parties, two models

On April 28, Spaniards will go to the polls in a snap national election triggered by a deadlock over the 2019 budget. Whichever government emerges from the vote will have to deal with this and other longstanding economic issues such as persistently high unemployment, ballooning debt and how to finance the pensions system with an ageing population. And on the political front, immigration and the Catalan crisis will continue to shape the national agenda. Spain in a snapshot Spain...