The two-stage revaluation of pensions next year, up to inflation only for pensions below the minimum wage, was approved on the night of Friday 22 to Saturday 23 November 2024 by the Senate, with the support of the government.
Adopted by 231 votes to 100, this amendment to the Social Security budget for 2025 takes up the main lines of the compromise negotiated between Prime Minister Michel Barnier and the strong man of the right, Laurent Wauquiez.
The measure, defended by Senator Pascale Gruny (LR), “ensures a revaluation of all basic pensions from January 1 to the level of half of inflation”she said before the vote. This first increase has already been estimated at 0.9% by the Minister of the Budget, Laurent Saint-Martin.
The Senate modifies the pension adjustment mechanism for 2025:
All pensions revalued on January 1, at half inflation
As of July 1: new increase for pensions below the minimum wage, to reach inflation, and catch-up for the first half pic.twitter.com/ITk5J5hBdj— Public Senate (@publicsenat) https://twitter.com/publicsenat/status/1860106847555842516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
What revaluation, when?
Retirees receiving a total pension (basic and supplementary) lower than the minimum wage “will then be revalued a second time up to the inflation observed on July 1”with the added bonus “making up for the shortfall” over the first half so that they “will thus be fully protected against inflation” added Ms. Gruny.
According to the text of the amendment, this indexing will be complete until “1,500 euros gross per month”. An intermediate level is also provided for “insured persons whose pension is slightly above this threshold”which will benefit from a revaluation “minorée”.
“More equitable”?
Compared to the government's initial proposal, which wanted to postpone the increase in pensions by six months to save four billion euros, the new version “reduces the expected return by around 500 million”specified the senator, judging “this more equitable solution”.
The Minister of Labor, Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet, nevertheless supported this rewriting because “an agreement was reached with parliamentarians”.
“With one of the smallest groups in the Assembly”retorted the ecologist Raymonde Poncet-Monge, deploring seeing the executive and the senatorial majority “happy to modulate the drop in purchasing power” retirees.
The socialist Monique Lubin, for her part, denounced “a scam” which will result in “a dead and definitive loss for all retirees”.
