For several months now, inflation has been a real problem for the French, especially retirees, who have seen their purchasing power and standard of living drop considerably. In this difficult context, future retirees are therefore worried about leaving professional life and suffering a major drop in resources, which will inevitably lead to a degraded quality of life. While the DREES has just published new figures, how much has the decline in the purchasing power of retirees since 1997?

There are currently 17 million French retirees, who currently receive 1,420 euros in pension, whether basic or additional, net monthly, according to the annual study by DREES. As Moneyvox reports, the average pension for workers who are now stopping their professional activity amounts to 1,398 euros with, consequently, an average pension of new retirees lower than that of all retirees.

Since 1997, the purchasing power of retirees has also fallen dramatically. Basic and supplementary pensions are thus revalued each year according to a formula based on inflation. According to the DREES, “the purchasing power of the gross retirement pension of a non-managerial employee in the private sector with a continuous career who liquidated his pension at the full rate at age 60 in 1997 fell by 6.1% in total between the end of 1997 and the end of 2022”. The purchasing power of the net pension therefore fell by 6.8%.