With Greek pensioners already facing big cuts under austerity measures, a report from the Ministry of Labor said the system of paying retirees is under stress because there are about a million more beneficiaries, unemployed and non-workers than workers paying into the program.
The report found there are now 4,690,163 people not working compared to only 3,642,102 workers from whom deductions are taken to support the retirement system, not including tax evaders who pay little or nothing, putting a further burden on the program.
The information came out of the first report of the unified system of payment of pensions, ILIOS, created by the Ministry of Labor and the E-Governance of Public Insurance SA, which included revealing information concerning the number of pensioners, the amount and the categories of the pensions and the total expenditure.
It was surprising that the system detected 93 different funds and pension branches (of main and supplementary pensions) and now a joint entry with all the pensions that each person receives is created.
It is also typical of the situation in the country that according to the data given by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (El.STAT.) the ratio of the economically active population with the non-economically active began to reverse by the end of 2010, when it was 1 to 1.
The data showed that the majority of the main and supplementary pensions is in the range from 0 to 500 and from 500-1,000 euros and that almost 29 percent of people receive pensions of more than 1,000 euros a month ($1,320) even after big cuts imposed by the government.
After the cuts implemented over the last years, the average main pension granted by the social security funds amounts to 694.56 euros ($917.89) before taxes. As regards the supplementary pensions paid to 1.5 million people, the average is to 178,48 euros ($235.89) before taxes as the government has taken to taxing everyone except tax cheats who won’t pay.
Other findings were that:
- The average monthly income from pensions due to death is 680.5 euros (378,946 people). The average monthly income from invalidity pensions is 611.31 euros (224,611 people).
- The average monthly income from pensions of 42,287 uninsured elderly people (Organization for Agricultural Insurance-OGA) is 361.94 euros.
- Almost 1 million people get the main pension (old-age, due to death or invalidity pension) which does not exceed 500 euros.
- Almost 1 million people get main pensions from 500 to 1.000 euros per month, while less than 600,000 pensioners get pensions from 1000 to 1,500 euros.
- According to the data, there are 80,000 people- the vast majority is old-age pensioners – who get more than 1,500 euros from the social security funds.
However, after the cuts of recent years, the pensioners receiving a main pension of more than 2,500 euros, do not exceed 740 (supplementary pensions are not included in the amounts).
As regards the supplementary pensions, almost all pensioners get less than 500 euros per month. Just 10,000 pensioners receive more than 500 euros by the supplementary funds and 300 of them receive from 1000-1500 euros (the vast majority is old-age pensioners).
It is also estimated that almost 12,000 people receive four pensions from different sources (i.e. from main and supplementary pension funds).
Finally, according to the information concerning nationality, the report shows that the vast majority of pensions is granted to Greeks and just 9.099 pensions are granted to nationals of other countries with Albania being the first, Bulgaria second, Turkey third and Russia fourth.
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