The pensioner will struggle to earn a living on 5,500 lira

The vice president of the AKP Group, Mustafa Elitaş, who introduced the bill on a 30 percent increase for civil servants and retirees, stated that the number of retirees who will receive the lowest pension, which was increased from 3,500 liras to 5,500 lire, it increased from 1,200,000 to 2,721 people.

Elitaş thus gave the message that the number of retirees who will fight for their livelihood with the lowest pension has exceeded 2.7 million people in 6 months.

ADVERTISED COST

Explaining the financial picture of the proposal in the Parliamentary Plan and Budget Committee, Elitaş said that the number of civil servants who will benefit from the salary increase is 3.8 million and the number of retirees is 13.9 million. Elitaş stated that the additional cost of increasing the minimum pension to 5,500 lira to the budget is TL 21.9 billion, the additional cost of increasing pensions to 30 percent is TL 131.5 billion, and the cost of increasing the salary of civil servants to 30 percent is 128.4 billion lire.

EMPLOYER SUPPORT

Elitaş stated that 7.5 million workers working in 1.7 million workplaces will benefit from the increase in minimum wage support to employers from 100 lira to 400 lira, and that 17.1 billion lira of support for these workplaces, adding that the total cost of the bill will reach 300 billion lira.

Elitaş said that the lowest salary of civil servants, including family allowance, increased to 11,843 lira, the lowest salary of retired civil servants to 7,901 lira, declared that it would be resigned. He specified that while the lowest pension at the beginning of 2022 corresponded to 58 percent of the minimum wage, as of 2023 the lowest pension increased to 64 percent of the minimum wage.

THE INTENSIVE CRITICISM ARRIVED

The new increases received intense criticism from the deputies. CHP’s Emine Gülizar Emecan said the lowest pension in 2002 was about 1.5 times the minimum wage, but in the 20 years since, the right of retirees has been defeated and reduced below the minimum wage. While CHP’s Ünal Demirtaş stated that 7 million retirees had to work at an advanced age due to low pay, IYI Party’s İsmail Koncuk said that while the lowest pension received a 2,000-lira increase, the increase of many retirees was less than 2 thousand lire, and that the increase of these retirees must be completed at 2 thousand lire.