More than 450,000 Spaniards receive a pension of more than 3,000 euros per month

Social Security has almost a million pensioners on its payroll who receive a benefit of more than 2,500 euros per month. A figure that far exceeds the average salary in the country, which was around 2,130 per month last year, according to the INE. In addition, of this entire population, there are 450,000 people who receive a benefit greater than 3,000 euros per month, a threshold that had not been surpassed until 2023, when the maximum pension stood at 3,058 euros by increasing the maximum contribution base.. This is clear from the latest contributory pension statistics published this Tuesday by the department led by Minister Elma Saiz.

Although the number of pensioners who receive a benefit of more than 3,000 euros per month is relatively small—they barely represent 7% of all pensioners for whom data exists by income bracket—the expenses for the system are considerable.. This population group represents a cost of more than 1,363 million euros per month for Social Security accounts.

In any case, it is important to remember that those who receive this high pension have contributed more during their working career, which gives them the right to a higher initial benefit when they retire.. However, these people obtain a greater benefit from the revaluation of pensions according to the CPI – which applies to all Spaniards equally – than the lowest incomes in absolute terms.

Gender issue

Among the retired population there are 373,527 people who receive the maximum pension. However, of them, 80% are men, an overwhelming difference that is mostly explained by the later incorporation of women into the labor market.. The average age of pensioners is 73 years, a generation that entered the labor market between the late sixties and early seventies, when making one's way in a man's world was more difficult.

The other side of female precariousness is on the opposite side of the income spectrum. Among retirees who receive a benefit equal to or less than the minimum wage, two out of every three cases are women. So much so, that the current average retirement pension for a woman is 1,080 euros per month, the same amount as the interprofessional minimum wage in force in 2023.

The daily reality of the pension system is much more similar to this last case. In Spain there are almost 4 million retirees whose pension is equal to or less than the minimum interprofessional wage. A group, made up mostly of women and which represents around 40% of the population that receives contributory pensions in Spain.

The latest data released by Social Security reflect that the average pension stood at 1,198 euros per month in November 2023, an amount that in the case of retirements rises to 1,378 euros per month.. Retirees who enter the system with an initial average pension of around 1,512 euros per month.

From the point of view of spending, the monthly disbursement of contributory pensions reaches 12.1 billion, 11.5% of the National Gross Domestic Product. In the case of November – when one of the two annual extra payments is paid – the bill grows to 24,000 million, as an additional 11,823 million of the extra are incorporated. The bulk of the pension payroll is covered thanks to the social contributions paid by workers affiliated with Social Security, but these are not enough to cover all the expenses, so the State has to complete what is missing through resources from taxes.

In total, in Spain there are 10,101,961 contributory pensions registered in the system, the vast majority of them retirement, which represent 63% of all pensioners, although they account for almost three out of every four euros of expenditure.

3.6% increase by 2024

The increase in pensions for 2024 will be known next Wednesday, when the INE will make public the inflation data corresponding to November. The revaluation of pensions is calculated by averaging the interannual CPI between October of the previous year and the reference November. Unless the data for the current month is known, the average for the last eleven months is 3.6% and will hardly exceed 3.7%.

With these figures in hand, the average pension would rise by about 50 euros per month in 2024. From the point of view of spending, the cost of shielding purchasing power would be around 6.5 billion if the criteria of the Bank of Spain are applied, which estimate that for each point of inflation spending increases by 1.8 billion.

There will be more information…