El gasto en pensiones contributivas supone el 11,5% del PIB

Contributory pension spending stands at 11.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in February.

The monthly payroll of the Social Security contributory benefits this month of February has been 12,668.2 million euros, for the payment of the ordinary monthly payment.

Distribution according to pension class

Almost three quarters of the contributory pension payroll corresponds to retirement pensions, as usual. Specifically, these pensions account for 73.2% of the payroll, 9,270.7 million euros. A total of Euro2,097.5 million has been earmarked for widows' pensions, while the payroll for permanent disability benefits is Euro1,095.9 million, the payroll for orphans is Euro170.4 million and the payroll for family benefits is Euro33.6 million.

Of the 10.1 million contributory pensions paid, 6.5 million are retirement pensions, 2.3 million are widows ' pensions, and the rest are permanent disability pensions (943,561), orphanhood (340,382) and family pensions (45,474). The number of pensions is growing at a year-on-year rate of 1.2%.

In February, the number of pensioners was 9.2 million. Of these, 4.6 million are men and 4.5 million are women. The proportion of pensions per pensioner is maintained at 1.1 benefits per person.

The retirement pension is the main one for 6.3 million people. Of these, 60 per cent are men; in the case of the widow ' s pension, of the 1.5 million people who receive it as the main benefit, 96 per cent are women. On the other hand, there are 938,997 permanent disability recipients, 322,627 orphans, and 44,858 family members.

Average pension

The average pension of the system, in February, amounts to 1,250.7 euros per month, 5% more than a year ago thanks to the revaluation carried out at the beginning of the year. This average corresponds to the amount of the different types of pension (retirement, permanent disability, widowhood, orphanhood and in favour of family members).

The average retirement pension, for its part, is 1,437.1 euros. By system, the average retirement pension from the General System is 1,597.4 euros per month, while the lowest is registered by the Autonomous System, with 959.7 euros per month. In Coal Mining, the average monthly retirement is 2,795.5 euros, and it is 1,591.8 euros in the Regime of the Sea. The average amount of new retirement increases in the system amounted in the month of February 2024 (last data) to 1,643.8 euros per month.

For its part, the average widow’s pension is 893.1 euros per month.

The average time for settling the files in January (last data available) was 15.85 days in the case of the retirement pension and 14.79 days in the case of widows’ pensions. It must be taken into account that the maximum period of resolution in these procedures, according to RD 286/2003 of March 7 and RD 1192/2021, of August 3, is 90 days in both retirement and widow’s benefits.

Gender gap complements

In February, 686,125 pensions received the gender gap supplement, of which 90% were women (618,932). The average monthly amount of this supplement in the pension is 71 euros. Of the 686,125 supplementary pensions, 23.6% were pensioners with one child (162,002), who previously had no access to the maternity supplement. 47.1% of the beneficiaries have two children (323,391); 19% have three children (130,794), and four children have 10.2% (69,938).

The gender gap supplement, in force since February 2021, consists of a fixed amount, after the revaluation applied in 2024, of 33.20 euros per month per child, which applies from the first child, unlike the previous maternity supplement. It is requested at the same time as the pension is requested.

Passive Classes

For its part, the monthly pension payroll of Passive Classes amounted to 1,566.2 million euros in the month of January, the last available figure. This figure represents an increase of 101.6 million euros compared to the previous year, 6.9% more.

The number of pensions in force was 707,822, 14,9216 more pensions than in the same month of the previous year (2.15% annual variation).

The Passive Class System of the State includes primarily military and civilian personnel of the General Administration of the State, the Administration of Justice, the General Courts and other constitutional or State bodies, as well as officials transferred to the autonomous communities.

Full information on contributory pensions in the Social Security System can be found in the attached file.
Likewise, the eSTADISS application, located in http://run.gob.es/estadiss, allows to obtain statistical information on Social Security pensions, with selection of the parameters that are of interest and possibility to export the results in different formats.
For more statistical information on Passive Class pensions: https://www.portalclasespasivas.gob.es/