Deputies from various parties welcomed this Thursday the change to the law that ensures the first update of pensions in the year immediately following the one in which they are granted, but they underline the need for the measure to be retroactive before 2024.
Noting that there are hundreds of thousands of people who will not be covered by the new rules, Left Bloc deputy José Soeiro highlighted the need to reinforce the measure, making it retroactive for those who retired in 2022 and 2023, years in which that inflation was high. .
The PCP project that is also being debated this Thursday goes further, arguing that the review of the annual update of all pensions (regardless of the date on which they are granted) “comes into force as of January 1, 2019”, and that the recalculation is carried out ex officio.
In a speech, the PCP deputy, Alfredo Maia, maintained that a solution must still be studied that paves the way so that “all pensions, even those granted before 2019, enjoy the right to an annual update of their pensions from of the immediately following year.” its beginning.”
What is at stake is the fact that the law establishes that pensions granted in a yearit would only be updated for the first time in the second calendar year after it was granted, meaning that, in practice, anyone retiring in January 2023 would not see the value of their pension increased for the first time until January 2025.
At the beginning of this month, the Government approved a diploma (already promulgated by the President of the Republic) that eliminates this rule, guaranteeing that pensions will be updated in the immediately following year and making its effects retroactive to all pensions granted as of January. 2024.
After pointing out that the Government’s initiative was publicized and approved when this debate was already scheduled, José Soeiro welcomed the measure, considering, however, that it needs to be reformed, and his party presented a project that defends that pensions be granted from January 2022. It can also be recalculated in light of the registered updates and that this recalculation is carried out unofficially by the Social Security Institute.
The question of updating pensions the year after they are granted also appears in a Livre projectwith the deputies also debating the Chega and PAN projects on the conditions for the granting of the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly.
During the debate, the PS warned that the pension updating rule that was in force for decades affected several successive generations of pensioners and that the country went through different inflationary cycles, but it also considered that there are no changes that are immune to improvements.
Source: Observadora
