The number of beneficiaries in the public pension scheme expanded further during 2022, reaching a total of 686,923 people or over 13 thousand more than in 2021.
Official data from the Institute of Social Insurance show that the number of pensioners is growing faster than the number of contributors. Pensioners increased by 13 thousand, while contributors by 10 thousand. In 2022 for every beneficiary there were only 1.1 contributors from 1.2 which was this ratio in 2018.
In the following years, the contributor/beneficiary ratio will deteriorate even further due to unfavorable demographic developments. Projections show that by 2030, the working-age population will shrink systematically and, on the other hand, the number of pensioners will increase rapidly, putting the sustainability of the pension scheme at risk.
In 2010, the official statistics of ISSH reported 543,053 pensioners, while at the end of 2022, 686,923 such were reported. According to the data belonging to the time frame 2010-2022, the growth rates of the number of pensioners expanded after 2012.
In 2010 and 2011, their number increased by about 5 thousand pensioners in each year, but after 2013, an average of 15 thousand are added to the scheme every year. The rates have slowed slightly in recent years, due to the new pension reform that extended the retirement age by 6 months a year for women and the effects created by the pandemic where most of the additional deaths were of retirement age.
Despite these developments, in 2022 the social security scheme showed stability due to higher receipts from contributions. ISSH reported income of 133,3 billion ALL from contributions with an annual increase of 18%. As a result, subsidies from the state budget for the insurance scheme were 22,9 billion ALL with an 18 percent decrease from 2021, where the budget supported the public pension scheme with about 28 billion ALL from other revenues.
These developments do not diminish the sustainability of the scheme in the following period where more and more pensions will be included in the scheme and the pressures to increase the amount of pensions are increased by the high prices. Pensioners’ incomes are being eroded by inflation, as the government provided additional aid packages this year for this category.
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