The increase in pensions in accordance with inflation has a high price that the Government is willing to assume. He had stated it in his statements and now he has transferred it to the facts, to next year's budget. It represents an additional increase of 23,000 million in Social Security spending, which thus stands at 204,208 million, 12.8% more than in the current year.
Greatly responsible for this increase is the maintenance of the purchasing power of pensions. They will be indexed according to year-on-year inflation for November, which is not yet known, but the figure the government is working with is around 8.5%. Since we must add the increase in the group of pensioners and the variation in the average pension, the percentage increase in pensions is 11.4%. Total, paying for pensions next year will cost 190,687 million euros; that is, 19,687 million more than this year.
Entering the different types of pensions, the lion's share is taken by the contributory ones, to which 166,700 million are allocated, which represents an increase of 11.2%. They are 72% of the total pensions. Within the contributory pensions, they are distributed among retirement pensions (120,054 million, which account for 72% of total pensions), disability (15,496 million), widows (28,394), orphans (2,359) and in favor of relatives (473).
The non-contributory ones appear as a credit from Imserso worth 2,803 million euros, which will allow this group of some 428,000 beneficiaries to be served.
It is a high bill that will be paid in large part thanks to an increase in the collection of social contributions, which will total 152,075 million, which represents an 11.5% increase compared to what was collected in the current year. An increase that is explained by the increase in the maximum contribution bases and by the current framework of economic growth. In this way, the contributions will cover 74.5% of the total Social Security budget.
After contributions, the second element of Social Security income is State contributions, which amount to 38,904 million, of which 19,888 are transfers in compliance with the first recommendation of the Toledo Pact, which establishes the improvement of the pensions. They are 1,492 million more than in the current year.
These budgets also include the introduction of the new contribution system for self-employed workers, which means contributing according to real income. A change in the self-employed system to, among other things, ensure that, in exchange for a higher contribution, they also obtain better benefits when they retire, and that the enormous distance that currently separates them from those of the general regime is not maintained.
The Government has made a flag of this increase in pensions, and as such, the Treasury Minister, María Jesús Montero, used them to criticize the PP for, according to her, not having a clear position on the matter. "Is the PP in agreement or not with revaluing pensions and that pensioners do not lose purchasing power?", the minister asked in relation to the information on the possibility of not indexing the highest pensions according to prices. She also added that “it is bad politics to try to confront the generations. This budget contains the dignity of our elders”.
Other social items are the revaluation of 8.5% of the minimum vital income, and an increase of 3.6 points in the Iprem index, which will reach 600 euros per month. The item dedicated to dependency also increases by 600 million, and the unemployment benefit improves. By the way, the budget for unemployment benefits has been cut by 5.2%, considering that employment will continue to grow and fewer subsidies will be needed.
The item dedicated to education increased by 6.6%, reaching 5,354 million; while health spending increased a similar percentage, 6.7%, to 7,049 million. It includes 173 million for primary care and 500 million to the autonomous communities for primary care and mental health infrastructure. 1.1 billion also appear for the fourth dose of the covid vaccines.
On the subject of expenses, there is also the controversial increase of 25% in Defense, 2,500 million that was the subject of confrontation between PSOE and Podemos, but that was solved in recent weeks.
