In Utrecht, hundreds of people demonstrated against the decoupling of the state pension from the minimum wage. The participants gathered in a park and then went on a tour of the city.
The minimum wage will increase by 7.5 percent in the cabinet plans, but because the link with the state pension is being released, pensioners will not benefit from this increase.
Some of the state pensioners have been complaining for years that their benefits are too low. It is especially difficult for people who do not have a supplementary pension to make ends meet, but also retirees with a small pension sometimes run into financial problems. In recent years, pensions have risen little, if at all, and people have actually declined due to inflation.
Women
“Be mindful of us”, said two women who walked along RTV Utrecht† “Don’t forget that in our generation many people started working at the age of 13 or 14. And many women have hardly been able to build up a pension because they did not work, you had a man and that was it.”
Elderly organizations want to talk to Minister Schouten for Poverty Policy in the short term. They want to know what the government will do to improve the purchasing power of old-age pensioners.
Incidentally, the risk of poverty among the elderly is relatively small. According to Statistics Netherlands, it is mainly people who are close to retirement who run the risk of getting into financial distress.
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