In times of political and social polarization, there is little room to face challenges such as the one posed by pensions.
tends to fall in extreme positions. Or is it considered that nothing can be done and things should be left as they are or that everything must be done because the system doesn’t work.
This was reflected in the discussion of the so-called Pension Fund for Wellbeing.
It is true that It is virtually impossible to ensure a pension equivalent to 100 percent of the last salary to all workers, as offered by President López Obrador.
Of course, the initiative itself clearly limited that promise.
But at the same time, it is reasonable to look for options for the scarce resources that would be obtained by those who will retire in the coming years, having started their working life in the second half of 1997 or 1998, for example, and therefore forced to retire under the Afores scheme, that is, only with their saving.
For several thousand people, whose number will grow in the coming years, the estimated income they could obtain if they did not have voluntary savings could be around 45 percent of last salary and will rise until reaching just over 70 percent by 2031.
Considering that they had a salary of approximately 17 thousand pesos – the current average for IMSS contributors – the aspiration would be a pension below the minimum wage, that is, 7 thousand 600 pesos per month.
One option is to do nothing and suggest that they add to those resources those that could be received through the senior program.
But at the same time, thinking that it is possible to guarantee 100 percent of salaries to all those who retire and earn at most that average of 17 thousand pesos per month, is not financeable in the long termunless a higher tax burden is introduced and resources are labeled for that purpose.
What is questionable, it seems to me, is not that the government wanted to find a solution to the problem derived from low pensions.
What is criticizable is the procedure.
It not only involved the possibility of using third-party resourcesbut also a scheme was designed that does not guarantee that the fund has the amounts enough in the future.
What options exist for those who at the time of retirement only have access to a meager pension?
One possibility is encourage people to continue working for a few additional years.
This could be achieved with additional contributions that the government could provide, in order to significantly increase in a few years the amount available for retirement.
That scheme or others that encourage savings and postponement of retirementcan help mitigate the problem.
The gradual increase in employer contributions that began last year and will continue until 2030 will undoubtedly help.
However, the change in the demographic profile that leads to the proportion of people over 65 years of age growing rapidly in Mexico forces us to seriously think about gradually increasing the retirement age.
When the IMSS Law of 1973life expectancy at birth was 59 years for men and of 63 for women.
Survival after retirement was relatively short, which implied a lower cost for public finances.
Today we have a completely different circumstance in which pensioners sometimes They live more than 15 or 20 years after retiring.
There is no way to ensure that there are sufficient resources to cover these pensions in the long term.
Think about reaching a retirement age of 70 years After making gradual adjustments over the course of one or two decades, it could be one of the options to face a crisis that is not for the future, but has already reached us.
