The increase in pension spending triples in just two years

The system, for the first time in history, has surpassed the barrier of 12,000 million euros in July and month after month it will continue to set records, which is causing tensions in the accounts despite the reforms carried out to achieve its sustainability, which will end the year with an estimated deficit of 0.5% of GDP despite the fact that the Government had promised to eliminate it this year.

Specifically, spending on contributory pensions stood at 12,017.8 million euros this month, which represents 11.7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last 12 months, according to data published yesterday by the Ministry of Social Security.

The reason for this skyrocketing spending is, mainly, inflation. The escalation that prices began in 2022, driven by an increase in the cost of electricity and gas, led the Executive to have to revalue pensions this year by 8.5% to comply with the law and maintain the purchasing power of those over 9 .1 million pensioners.

Thus, in the last decade Social Security has increased its spending on this item by more than 4,100 million euros and this year it allocates 1,000 million more than just twelve months ago. The number of pensions, however, grows at a much lower interannual rate of 1.1%, but in the last ten years there have been almost 800,000 more benefits, one million if compared to those of 2012, and since February they have exceeded ten million .

After the increase in pensions with the CPI, the average retirement pension rose almost 9.6% in July to 1,375.1 euros per month. For its part, the average pension of the system, which includes the different types of pension (retirement, permanent disability, widowhood, orphanhood and for family members), also increased by 9.6% year-on-year, reaching 1 July of this year. year at 1,195.1 euros per month.