Christmas is generally a time of family reunions and shared reflection. Different generations share a table and see evidence: everyone’s well-being is deeply linked. It is precisely for this reason that these dates are a good time to talk about the public retirement system with serenity, without selfish alarmism and without stories intended to divide.
In recent times, those who aspire to weaken the public pension system – while opting for private formulas – have intensified a discourse that presents pensions as an economic and social problem. We are trying to establish the idea that THE perceptions of people Older people are responsible for low wages, difficulties in accessing housing or the deterioration of public services. This is not an innocent debate: it is a conscious strategy to confront generations and divert attention from those who actually benefit from job insecurity, real estate speculation or the deeply unequal distribution of wealth generated by work.
The data debunks this story. The average pension in the system is 1261.90 euros per month, and the average retirement pension reaches 1,449.90 euros. But the reality of the majority is very different: Half of pensions do not exceed 1,050 euros and almost 60% are lower than the inter-professional minimum wage., currently defined In 1,184 euros. Only 1.6% of retirees receive the maximum pensionafter long periods of contributions and without having been prematurely expelled from the labor market. Presenting this reality as a system of privileges is not an error: it is self-serving manipulation.
In this debate, there is a previous battle, silent but decisive: that of language. When we talk about public pensions, there is a strong emphasis on calling them “expenses,” as if they were an unproductive burden weighing on the economy. This choice is not innocent: Naming them like this is already a way of fighting against the public retirement system. Pensions are not an expense, but delayed perceptionsthe result of decades of work, effort and contribution to system.
The evidence of bias is clear: perceptions of private systems are never characterized as expenditure. In this area, we talk about social benefits, social security plans, additional savings or consolidated rights. No one qualifies as an expense what a person receives from a private plan, even if it is also financed by income generated during their professional life.. Only when it comes to public pensions is dehumanized accounting language used, designed to erode their social legitimacy.
Even from a strictly economic point of view, alarmism does not hold water. The share of national wealth allocated to public pensions in Spain is approximately 12% of GDPa proportion lower than that of our neighboring countries European like Austria, Italy, Finland or France. Far from any improvisation, the reform of 2023 incorporated a closure clause that establishes periodic assessments and correction mechanisms as necessary. In his latest analysis, the AIREF concluded that no further adjustments were necessary and that the system remained within the predicted thresholds until 2050, year in which today’s young people will begin to retire. There is control, there is foresight and there is responsibility.
But the underlying debate is not technical, it is political and social. Pensions do not impoverish young people: They protect her. They constitute one of the main barriers against poverty and support thousands of households in which wages cannot be reached or precariousness has become chronic. During the crises, it was grandparents’ pensions which made it possible to avoid even more serious situations of exclusion.
It’s worth saying clearly: Salaries are not paid from the public budget, but from company decisions. Young people do not earn little because of pensions, but because of a productive model based on low wages and an unfair distribution of the value generated. Neither housing is inaccessible not because of retirees, but because of speculation and a model that sees housing as a business and not as a rightdenying young people access to a decent life plan.
There is no natural conflict between young and old. This confrontation is manufactured in such a way that those who suffer from precarious contracts, abusive rents and insufficient salaries look down and not up.. So that they appoint their grandparents and not those who appropriate the profits of his work.
At the end of Christmas and making resolutions for the New Year, after sharing a table between generations, it is clear that no one steals the future of young people from a pension.. The future is being stolen by paying unworthy wages, speculating in housing and privatizing rights. Defending the public retirement system means defending the dignity of work, social justice and a shared future. When faced with deception, there is only one response: unity between generations and firmness against those who enrich themselves thanks to inequalities.
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