The increase in the minimum base has not yet been approved, waiting for the Government to ratify the 5% increase in the SMI
MADRID, 30 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes this Tuesday the 5% increase in the maximum contribution base for this year, up to 4,720.5 euros per month, according to the parameters set in the pension reform approved in the previous legislature.
In the case of the maximum bases, the reform establishes that, from 2024 to 2050, they will rise with the CPI plus a fixed amount of 1.2 points each year of this period. In this way, taking into account that the average CPI from December 2022 to November 2023 stood at 3.8%, the maximum contribution base will rise by 5% this year, which will place it at 4,720.50 euros per month. or 56,646 euros annually.
This base represents the maximum salary remuneration on which the contribution rates are applied to determine the amount that companies and workers contribute monthly to Social Security for the payment of pensions, so that increasing this maximum salary amount subject to contributions increases income. of the system.
Likewise, the pension reform determines that the gender gap complement (30.4 euros in the current year) will rise an additional 10% to the CPI in the 2024-2025 biennium, which will be distributed between both years, as determined by the respective General State Budget Laws.
According to the Government’s Budget Plan sent to Brussels, the increase in the maximum base in 2024 will imply income of more than 308.5 million euros.
The Government will evaluate the increase in the maximum contribution bases every five years within the framework of social dialogue and will send a report to the Toledo Pact Commission.
At the same time as the maximum contribution base increases, the maximum pension will increase next year with the CPI (from 2025 it will do so with the CPI plus an additional 0.115%).
In this way, with the 3.8% revaluation of the CPI, the maximum pension in 2024 will be 3,175.5 euros per month for fourteen payments, compared to 3,059.2 euros in 2023.
The capping of the initial maximum pension will begin to be applied in 2025 and will consist of revaluing the maximum pension with the CPI plus an additional increase of 0.115 percentage points each year until 2050, which will mean an increase of approximately 3% in that period.
What this Tuesday’s ministerial order does not update is the increase in the minimum contribution base, waiting for the Government to approve the 5% increase in the SMI for 2024, which will be the percentage by which the minimum contribution increases with retroactive to January 1 of this year. In 2023, the minimum base stood at 1,260 euros per month and remains provisionally that way for the moment.
For its part, the BOE this Tuesday also includes the overpricing of the so-called Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI), which rises one tenth in 2024, from 0.6% to 0.7%, which will be distributed at 0.58% paid by the employer and 0.12% paid by the worker (in the case of the self-employed, they assume the full 0.7%).
According to the Government’s projections included in the Budget Plan sent to Brussels, this measure will report income to Social Security of 3,702 million euros next year, the approximate equivalent of 0.24% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), compared to the collection of 0.20% of GDP in 2023.
Adding the 0.7% surcharge of the MEI in force in 2024 to the contribution rate for common contingencies, the total rate will be 29%, compared to 28.90% in 2023 (the difference between both years is the additional tenth in which the MEI will rise next year), as established by the order of the Ministry of the Presidency published in the BOE this Tuesday.
The income from the MEI, a mechanism that replaced the so-called sustainability factor, will be used to fatten the Pension Reserve Fund, the so-called ‘piggy bank’ which, according to Social Security calculations, starts at just under 3,000 million euros this year. year, it will accumulate between 120,000 and 130,000 million euros towards the mid-40s, double what it had in 2011 (68,000 million euros), until now the highest figure.
These funds will be disbursed “in a prudent and flexible manner” between the early 2030s and the early 2050s so that the system faces the financial tensions derived from the retirements of baby boomers.
The MEI surcharge will rise progressively until it reaches 1.2% in 2029 and from 2030 to 2050 it will remain at that 1.2%, although it may increase automatically if pension spending exceeds 15% of GDP. something that for now is ruled out in the Government’s projections.
