It was positive news and a welcome Christmas boost to pensioners when Labour Minister Zeta Emilianidou announced that the minimum state pension would from now on not be less than €710 per month.
The move should help 30,000 of society’s elderly population and move them above the poverty line that many have been living on or under for years. Low-income pensioners, most of whom are women, have been begging for enough money to live on for a very long time but their voices have always been drowned out by those who shouted the loudest and who already had it good.
The minimum state pension is today €359 while those on the social pension receive €341. These allowances are now being raised so that in combination no one will receive less than €710 per month. Elderly couples will be receiving a minimum of €1,210 per month. Not only that but it is being paid retroactively.
The move will cost the state €19m. Disy leader Averof Neophytou hailed the decision, calling it an “historic day” and saying it had satisfied a “decades-old” request. It was also taking into account the positions of the parties that had voted in favour of the rejected state budget, and those who might still vote for it. He hoped the same funds would be approved for 2021.
Apologies for appearing cynical but since the justified demand to make pensions fairer has been around for so many decades, why did it take so long? Everyone knew there were thousands of pensioners living below the poverty line while public servants were raking in pensions of €2,000 to €3,000 a month, and MPs and ministers even more than that.
Could it merely be a ploy to have the 2021 budget passed by satisfying the demands of some of the political parties who are gearing up for the parliamentary elections in a mere six months or so? When did the government become so benevolent? Where will they get the money going forward?
In 2014 in the middle of the financial crisis, the self-same government, under the watch of the troika, did not flinch when it decided to cut €10m from the social pension, an allowance introduced in 1995 to help elderly women who had never made social insurance contributions because they were doing unpaid work in the home or on family farms. Around 3,000 were affected by that.
The Anastasiades government did not deal with the real problem then, and is not dealing with it now, and that is an overhaul of the system to make it fairer and sustainable in the long term. But that would mean confronting the privileged public sector and their unions to level the playing field a bit so that no one is left in poverty in their old age.
Yesterday’s development, as welcome as it was for those in need is ultimately just another populist band aid to cover a festering wound.
