Greek pensioneers to see corrective increase of up to 0.5% for 2023

An additional increase of up to 0.5% (beyond the already announced 7.75%) is to be received by pensioners for the whole of 2023, while the measure of advance payments on pending pensions is in the final stretch.

In 2024 – regardless of the top-up increase – pensioners will get a corrective increase based on growth and inflation in 2023.

As social security fund EFKA officials emphasize, the additional increase will be determined after the summer based on the final data on the course of the economy in 2022 that will be validated by Eurostat. The additional percentage will be paid for all of 2023 in early 2024.

The 7.75% increase given was based on an estimate of economic growth of 5.6% and inflation of 9.9% in 2022. The sum of the two quantities, divided by two, constitutes, according to the law, the pension increase rate (9.9%+5.6%=15.5% and 15/2=7.75%).

The final rate

Inflation finally closed at 9.6%, while growth is expected to move to 6.4%-6.7% according to official estimates (of the Bank of Greece, the Commission and the OECD).

With growth between 6.4% and 6.7% for 2022, the final rate of pension growth is between 8% and 8.15%, so pensioners will have to look forward to a top-up increase of 0.25% -0.4% which can reach 0.5% in next year’s pensions.

It should be noted that pensioners will receive a retroactive increase of 7.75% for the January pension from February 22. The retrospective increase of 7.75% will be credited to the March 2023 pension paid at the end of February. In other words, the pensioners will receive their already increased pension and on top of it will be added the owed increase for the January pension paid in December 2022 without the 7.75%.

Payment in advance

At the same time, in a related amendment that has been submitted to the Parliament, it is foreseen to grant an advance payment for pending supplementary pensions, due to old age, disability or death, to insured persons who have submitted an application before July 1, 2022 and for whom a main decision has been issued pension.

The advance payment is granted by March 15, 2023, without requiring any action on the part of the beneficiary, and is equal to 100 euros for each month of delay in the issuance of the supplementary pension (for supplementary old-age pensions), from the period of submission of the application until 31 January 2023.

The advance payment is set at 50 euros for supplementary disability pensions and for the surviving spouse requesting a supplementary death pension. The issue concerns 40,000 pending pensioners who will receive advance payments of up to 8,000 euros of retroactive benefits and will be paid by March 15.