New amendment to the pension reform launched by the coalition government. This time from an organization of such depth as the Bank of Spain. The supervisor warns the Executive that the new regulation could have a negative impact on employment, wages and the competitiveness of companies. This is due to the triple increase in contributions that it imposes and that will especially affect workers with higher salaries, who are the ones who will suffer this penalty in three ways, while the rest of the workers will only be affected by the increase in contributions that the new intergenerational equity mechanism (MEI). What’s more, the highest incomes will be overpriced ten times higher than those below the maximum bases, according to the analysis published this Wednesday and prepared by experts from this institution.
“The increase in social contributions could generate economic changes (for example, a lower employment rate) that would reduce their ability to generate higher income for Social Security,” explains the organization led by Pablo Hernández de Cos, assuming that this The reform will penalize job creation due to the higher costs it implies for companies, especially for the largest ones, which is where this group of workers with higher incomes is concentrated in the majority.
In addition, it also considers that wages may be affected by this contribution reform, since by assuming more spending for companies, they will in turn tend to contain the remuneration of their employees so as not to charge all the cost that it implies on their margins. The increase in income from the pension reform “could be less if the higher labor costs negatively affect competitiveness, wages or employment,” he reiterates.
But in addition, the Bank of Spain corrects the numbers prepared by the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá. Thus, it estimates that the increase in contributions resulting from the pension reform could increase Social Security resources by around 0.6% of GDP in 2030 and 0.9% of GDP in 2050. And that in the best of cases, since it indicates that these forecasts are made “ignoring the effects on employment and wages that could derive from the increase in labor costs”.
This means that in his most optimistic forecasts, the supervisor reduces the increase in spending expected by Escrivá with this triple rise in prices within three decades by two tenths of GDP, and which he plans to allocate to the increased spending that will result from the wave of retirements that will with the retirement of the ‘baby boom’ generation. The Bank of Spain distances itself from the Government accounts and aligns itself with other organizations such as Airef and Fedea, which recently warned that Escrivá’s accounts are somewhat inflated and criticized that it involves more spending than income.
Profile of the principal affected
On the other hand, the Bank of Spain also emphasizes that the pension reform will have an “unequal” impact between workers and companies. Thus, it will hardly harm those who earn below the maximum base, currently located at 54,000 euros gross per year, and it will not have a great impact on smaller companies, since they generally pay lower wages, while they will be the workers with the highest income and the large companies that are penalized the most. To the point that the progressive increase in the effective rate of social contributions will increase progressively from 2025 to 2050, when it will stand at a rise of 1.2 points for the lowest wages and 11.3 points for the highest incomes , that is, ten times more.
The study estimates that those affected by this triple contribution will be around 1.3 million workers, 6.8% of the total, who are those who contribute for the maximum base, and outlines the profile of this group. This is a man, middle-aged on the high side, university student, employee of a large company and preferably dedicated to banking, consulting, IT or health, so large companies in these sectors will also be the most penalized for labor reform.
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