The government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, visited on Tuesday the Social Security offices in Ourense, where he reported on the impact of the revaluation of pensions in the benefits received each month by about 700,000 Galicians and Galicians.
The delegate, who was accompanied during the visit by the subdelegate in Ourense, Emilio González, and the provincial director of the INSS and the Social Security Treasury, Carolina Gancedo, indicated that this January, Galician pensioners saw an average increase of 43 euros in the amount of their benefits, which means more than 600 euros more per year.
The average pension was placed last January in Galicia at 1,068.59 euros, a figure that contrasts with the 1,025.47 euros that they received on average in December. In the case of the most numerous retirement pensions, they went from 1,173.19 euros on average in the month of December to 1,221.92 euros, which means 48.73 euros more per month and 682.22 euros more per year.
These increases respond to the increase in the CPI established by law by the Government for the revaluation of pensions received by one in four Galicians and which, in the case of the province of Ourense, allowed the average retirement pension to exceed for the first time in January this year at a barrier of 1,000 euros. Thus, the more than 67,000 Ourensans who receive retirement pensions received an average of 1,025.65 euros in January.
The revaluation, which benefits the more than 687,000 people who receive a pension in Galicia, means an increase in Social Security spending of 475 million a year in the payroll of Galician pensions, since it goes from 11,131 million euros in 2023 to 11,606 million in 2024.
Non-contributory pensions
For his part, Pedro Blanco recalled that non-contributory pensions, which receive about 37,200 people in Galicia, also increased this year by 6.9%, the same as the Minimum Vital Income, which means raising them to 517.9 euros per month (7,250.6 euros per year). This means increasing non-contributory pension spending in Galicia by around 270 million euros per year.
The amount of the minimum pensions also increased in the case of unipersonais households, which went from receiving 10,963.4 euros in 2023 to receiving 11,552.8 euros per year in 2024. With a spouse in charge, the amount amounts to 14,466.2 euros (13,526.8 in 2022). In addition, he pointed out that, as a novelty, widowhood pensions with family charges had been equipped this year with the minimum retirement pension with spouse to the charge, raising its amount by 14.1%.