Social Security has noted a decline in the payroll of pensions because of the coronavirus crisis.
The payroll of Social Security contributory pensions amounted to 9,852.78 million euros on May 1, a monthly fall of 0.27%, due to the decrease in discharges and increase in coronavirus casualties.
According to data released by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security & Migration on Tuesday, the system had a total of 9,754,137 contributory pensions on May 1, which is 38,508 less than last month.
In April, the downward trend in the number of pensioners was accentuated, due to the death toll from Covid-19 especially amongst older people. A decline in new registrations resulted in the closure of offices and delays in people joining the system.
Social Security reported that there were 31,232 registrations in April, 13.9% less than the previous month and 32.2% less than the same month in 2019.
If the annual accumulated from January to the beginning of May 202o is considered, 157,896 new pensions were registered, 22.1% less than in the same period of 2019, and 205,638 pensions decreased, 17.5% more than the previous year.
The Ministry has not given data for casualties in April, but on accumulated data it can be calculated that there were 69,857, 61% more than the 43,370 in March and the highest data since January 2015.
More than two thirds of the payroll expenditure went to the payment of retirement pensions, which amounted to 7,049.44 million, up 3.02% in the last twelve months.
6,073,499 of the total contributory pensions were for retirement; 2,343,975 corresponded to widowhood benefits; 953,905, to permanent disability; 339,814, to orphanhood, and 42,944, in favour of relatives.
The average pension was 1,010.11 euros per month, which is an inter-annual increase of 2.03% and the average retirement pension amounted to 1,160.6 euros, 2.02% more than last year.
Pensions corresponding to the new retirement additions were 1,472.49 euros per month, above the system average and 9.8% higher than the amount of the new pensions in 2019.
The number of pensions in the passive classes in April was 636,302, which placed the payroll at 1,151.15 million euros.