After two months of silence, the macrismo has found where to hit the Government of the Peronist Alberto Fernández. The public debate was ignited around the rise in pensions decreed on Friday by the president of Argentina, which does not take into account the update system that has been in force since 2018, when Mauricio Macri was president.
The lowest pensions, which exceed half of the total when the social plans received by the poorest are added, will rise in March 13%, against 11.5% that would have corresponded to the previous method. But as the increase was made with a fixed sum of 1,500 pesos ($ 24) and an additional 2.3%, its impact on higher pensions will be much lower, up to 7% in 13% of those in The tip of the pyramid. Macrismo has denounced an "adjustment of expenses" on retirees, a sector historically postponed and whose defense is the historical flag of Peronism. For Fernández there was no adjustment, but only a "flattening" of the pyramid that seeks to make the system more equitable.
"We managed to improve the situation of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable," Fernandez said at a press conference announcing the increases. The opposition disagreed. “This new system of discretionary updates, according to the needs of the Government, is a step back in the construction of our sovereignty. Retirees have the right to know how much they are going to charge, beyond the specific generosity of the government on duty, ”said the Macrista Alliance Let's change in a statement that it spread on networks. Already last December, days after assuming, Fernandez had warned that the 11.5% rise expected by the macro formula was "unpayable." “We will continue to increase [the retirees] with all the generosity we can. I will not freeze retirement, but [Macri] put a formula of impossible compliance, ”denounced the new president.
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The debate on how to update pensions is historic in Argentina. According to official data, last November, one month before the change of government, the payment of “pensions, pensions and allowances” represented almost 53% of public spending, before the cancellation of interest on public debt. Each small increase has a huge impact on state coffers. On October 1, 2008, Kirchnerism established by law that the increases would be the result of an equation that took equal variation in wages and tax collection. In December 2017, Macri promoted in Congress a new system based on 70% in the variation of inflation and 30% in the evolution of the average salary.
The approval of that law was a scandal. Peronism and leftist groups surrounded the Congress and were forced to suspend the first attempt at debate. The macrismo finally negotiated the votes with the Peronist governors, but did not prevent the second successful attempt to be held in a Congress armored by the police and very serious incidents. The opposition's argument, and today officialism, was that the new formula would reduce the percentage of increases that the Kirchnerist law provided for. Let's change now remembered those incidents. “Do you remember how much a fair formula cost us for all our retirees? 14 tons of stone, dozens of injured police officers, a destroyed square, and the institutional grievance of those who adjusted them today, ”wrote former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, current president of the PRO, the Macri party.
The underlying problem is that the economic forecasts that supported the macro formula were never fulfilled. Months before the discussion of the law in Congress, the then Minister of Economy, Nicolás Dujovne, predicted that Argentina would have 5% inflation in 2019, but finally it was 53.5%. That is why Fernández insists that the macro formula is “unpayable”, at a time when the State has its accounts in red and the Casa Rosada negotiates with the IMF a moratorium on the maturities of the external debt.
The new modality will mean savings for the treasury of about 5,500 million pesos per month (88 million dollars), according to calculations by private consultants. Fernández, however, rejects Cambiemos's accusation that he has cut spending at the expense of retirees. "That is not true, there is no adjustment," he said Sunday in a message he posted on his social networks. Under the new scheme, the most important increases will reach 87% of the poorest retirees. The Ombudsman, Eugenio Semino, explained that the minimum retirement will rise to $ 252, but warned that "there will be legal claims of 13% that collect the best pensions."