It was an important promise, made during the in-between rounds. Emmanuel Macron, then a candidate for his own succession, made a commitment to the French and the French to revalue retirement pensions. The amount of the increase to which the insured had to – and have to, because of successive postponements! – benefit depends on the reality of the observed inflation. The latter, which has continued to progress in recent months, is becoming increasingly burdensome for retirees who, unlike working people, may encounter all the difficulties in the world in inflating their purchasing power. The former always have the option of changing jobs (even though this can be more complex in times of high unemployment) or negotiating a raise… which the latter can no longer do.
It must be noted, that being said, that the Head of State did not have to wait for his re-election to start applying his promise: on January 1, 2022, pensions were automatically increased by 1.1% , in accordance with the calculation model in force. This increase, however, cannot be the only one, on the contrary. Small recap.
Initially, the executive had promised a 4% increase in pensions from the general scheme, effective from July. Because the legislative project has taken a significant delay, but also because of the scale of the task, the reinforced pensions have still not been paid. Fortunately, this does not mean that we will have to deal with a shortfall of several months, caused by postponements. As of September 9, the August pension payment date, retirees will benefit from a retroactive effect since July.
But will this be enough to offset inflation or should we fear a loss of income due to such an economic phenomenon? The answer might not turn out to be particularly reassuring…
All in all, recalls BFMTV on its site, retirees can count on a revaluation of their retirement pension by 5.1% for the whole of 2022. This value, all in all quite arbitrary, corresponds to the latest executive estimates of how much inflation the nation will be hit by the end of the year. “We fully protect our pensioners against inflation. Retirement pensions are revalued by 5.1% in 2022: 1.1% in January and 4% since July” also insisted on recalling the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire.
In reality, unfortunately, it must be realized that these two revaluations are not enough to cover inflation. Far from it, in truth, and it would have required a considerably larger or retroactive revenue increase since at least January 2022.
As part of its demonstration, BFMTV takes the example of a retiree whose pension from the general scheme amounted to 1,000 euros monthly before the two revaluations from which they must benefit in the long term. At the end of these, his pension will be increased to 1,051.44 euros per month.
Very concretely, he will therefore have earned an additional 12,374.64 euros, which corresponds concretely to an increase of 3.1% over the year. However, continues the news channel continuously on its site, it is far from enough not to suffer from inflation. This is estimated at 5.1% by the government… and more by other organizations. BFMTV thus evokes 5.5%, for example. On good terms.
