In order to obtain the amount of the benefit, ZUS divides the basis for calculating the old-age pension (accumulated capital) by the average life expectancy. Life expectancy, on the other hand, is the expected number of months for which a given person will receive a pension. Information on the average life expectancy is published every year at the end of March by the President of the Central Statistical Office in the form of tables.
To determine the basis for calculating the old-age pension, the following are taken into account:
indexed initial capital (if the applicant was covered by social insurance before January 1, 1999), indexed pension insurance contributions, which are credited to the ZUS account after 1998, indexed funds, which are credited to the ZUS sub-account, if the person is a member of OFE .
In the case of persons who were covered by social insurance before 1999 and were not covered by old-age and disability pension insurance after 1998, only the initial capital is taken into account to determine the basis.
How does it look in practice? The longer we work, and therefore the longer we accumulate funds in the ZUS account, the higher our pension should be. Moreover, the amount of the pension is also affected by the statistical life expectancy. A higher pension is awarded when benefits are likely to be paid for a shorter period. A lower amount is granted to persons who have retired earlier.
“Each year of work can increase your pension from 8 to even 15 percent” – pointed out Prof. Gertruda Uścińska, president of ZUS. What’s more, by working 7 years longer, you can double your pension – added the president of ZUS. Experts present a different position, who believe that longer work does not always lead to a higher pension.
For women who can retire at 60, it does not pay to delay this decision because, as a result of an error, at 65 they will have their pension recalculated as if they had only retired at the age applicable for men, without deduction of amounts from assets recorded in the ZUS account, which they collected for the period between the age of 60 and 65 – explained Tomasz Lasocki, an expert in the field of social security from the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw, in Interia Biznes.
According to the expert, the difference between the retirement of a woman aged 60 and a woman aged 65 who returned to her previous job will be only 3.7 percent. “This difference is minimal, and the woman who passed earlier will collect 60 pensions and all 13 and 14” – noted the expert.
As it turns out, longer work also does not pay off for people who will not be able to earn a benefit higher than the minimum pension. According to the regulations, if these people have an appropriate length of service and at the same time do not have sufficient capital, the state has committed to adjusting their pension to the minimum benefit in a given year, therefore postponing the decision to retire does not make sense.
ZUS argues that an effective way to increase the retirement benefit is to extend the working time. A different opinion is held by experts who believe that it is more profitable for seniors to apply for a pension, receive a benefit and take up additional work at the same time. Retirees who earn extra money to the pension may also apply for recalculation of the benefit once a year.
An application for recalculation of the old-age pension may be submitted by persons who:
can now document earnings for the years before the year of retirement or disability, or earnings that were obtained after the granting of the benefit, persons who continued to work after retirement and paid social security contributions, persons who, when submitting documents for the first time for retirement, did not have all the documents confirming the periods of insurance.
A person who submits an application for recalculation of the pension will not lose anything in the whole process. On the contrary, it may turn out that as a result of the documents provided, her pension increased.
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2023-08-19 08:55:14
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