Labor Minister Marius Budai says that with a 12.5 percent increase in pensions since January 1, “this ultra-car” percentage of 40 percent in pension increases has been exceeded. The minister reports that together with the pension coupon for the first month of the year, low-income pensioners will also receive the social assistance promised to various categories in a difficult situation, in January they will be assigned the first of two half-yearly contributions, writes News.ro.

“With this increase, we outperform these ultracars by 40%. I want to be very clear and very clear from the outset: all measures are not in praise of the Coalition or in praise of the Government, we are only reviewing them for discussion and to inform citizens. (…) These pension vouchers for the month of January are already printed with the new amount of the pension point and with the new amount of the pension, and for those with incomes up to 3,000 lei, the amount of the support measure, the measure adopted by the political coalition, is also indicated. which is supported by the Government and, together with the payment of the pension, whether it is collected through a bank account or by postman at home, together with the pension those who fall under the mentioned value threshold will also receive the sums of money related to the first half-yearly contribution from the measures support, they are already being paid, the payment started on January 4,” said Marius Budai on Antena 3 on Monday evening.

He clarified that thanks to the assistance measures, pensioners with pensions up to 1,500 lei will benefit from an increase “in real, net, nominal percentage over 40, and the percentage drops slightly to 20% up to 3,000 lei”, explaining that the first contribution of the assistance measures is added to the percentage , by which pensions increased.

When asked if the allowance can be considered a “poverty measure” in the context that approximately 90% of Romanian pensioners benefit from this assistance from the government, the minister replied: “It is a measure of need and we can say that about the poverty measure itself, but perhaps so we understand why PSD and Budai at one point shouted that pensions in Romania are very low, and we do not understand why pensions in Romania should remain low until 2070, and this is an unfair percentage to Romanian citizens with PNRR”.

Budai said that the percentage of GDP set for the pension budget “remains in the political debate”, he added: “We have certain conclusions, we leave them for the end, things are moving in a good direction.”

Budai emphasized that there was no analysis in the Ministry of Labor that would confirm the establishment of a percentage of 9.4% of GDP, which is foreseen by Romania through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.