By Chrysostomos Tsoufis

“We cannot run a pre-election period on taxpayers’ money” said Theodoros Skylakakis in parapolitika, putting an end to the scenarios for granting Easter benefits to low-pensioners and vulnerable social groups.

Especially pensioners should not be “bad-hearted” since March will be their month with the implementation of 2 extraordinary measures to support them.

By mid-March, around 40,000 pensioners whose supplementary pensions will not have been issued by the end of February will receive €100/month for each month of waiting from the time of applying for a supplementary pension. €50/month will be the amount for widowhood or disability benefits. The money will be paid once and the conditions for the insured are three:

– To have submitted an application for the issuance of a supplementary pension before July 1, 2022.

– That its main pension has been issued

-To have completed at least 15 years of supplementary insurance

Also, a one-time payment will be made approximately 2 weeks later, at the end of March, the so-called personal difference allowance. About 1.1 million pensioners will share €280 million in benefits of €200, €250 and €300. The criteria that determine the amount of the allowance are the amount of the pension before taxes, the amount of the increase (if received) and any other aids that the pensioner received in the previous period.

Specifically, €300 will be received by 560,000 pensioners who:

-They didn’t get a raise due to a personal difference and they have pensions of €800-1000

-They didn’t get a raise due to a personal difference but they did get a €250 check at Christmas.

-They did not get an increase due to a personal difference and had a very small benefit up to €36/year due to the abolition of the solidarity contribution as their pre-tax pensions are between €1000-€1100

€250 will be received by 394,000 pensioners who:

-They have pre-tax pensions of €1100-€1600, did not receive increases due to personal differences and benefited from the abolition of the solidarity levy of approximately €111 per year

-They already have pensions up to €1100 and received increases of up to 3.49%.

€200 will be received by 191,000 pensioners who:

-They have pre-tax pensions between €1,100-€1,600 and received an increase of up to 3.49%

-They have pre-tax pensions of up to €1,100 and got an increase from 3.49% to 6.9%.

In addition, the advance payment of the March pensions has already begun and will be completed by Thursday afternoon. Pensions will be boosted as they incorporate the 7.75% increase that was not given in January as planned for technical reasons.

A total of 2.6 million pensioners will receive about €2.3 billion before Clean Monday.