As announced a few days ago, Czech pensioners as a whole are not living well. This is true whether we consider their average income or the extreme income in their case.
As presented in the media, the incomes of today\’s retirees are as follows:
a) The average pensioner receives SEK 13,377.
b) Male pensioners receive an average of 14697 kroner.
c) Female pensioners averaged 12182 kronor.
d) About 190,000 pensioners in our country receive less than 10,000 per month.
e) About 60,000 of them do not even have SEK 8,000.
In other words, given that there are more than 2.4 million people receiving old-age pensions in this country, about 8 percent of pensioners live on less than 10,000 kronor and 2.5 percent on less than 8,000 kronor.
This is quite tragic. The income poverty line for independent people was already 11963 kronor last year and is set to be even higher this year.
In other words, more and more pensioners are becoming pensioners. That means they are poor: less than 7% nine years ago, almost 11% the year before that, and today …… is said to be “the highest in the world.
Today, it is said that about 30% of pensions are spent on housing and energy. And those who exceed this threshold (except in Prague with 35%) are entitled to a housing allowance, one of the social support benefits, and sometimes to housing assistance.
Currently, more than 60,000 pensioners are receiving housing allowances and about 3,000 families are in need. And the reality is said to be even more dire. This is because many of these “unknown” pensioners do not even apply for the housing allowance because they feel embarrassed and consider such an application unacceptable, and they consider the material deprivation allowance even less creditworthy.
This is the life of those who, nearly 30 years ago, heard from the mouths of politicians that they should save for their retirement during their working years because the public pension alone is not enough to lead a normal life. So they deserve to be pitied, but they also deserve more attention.
Because even we are told that we should save because someday our pensions will be worth nothing. But we ignore it and think that we will manage.
Let us hope that even in our old age, there will be at least a housing allowance or a hardship allowance so that we will not starve to death!
