- Title: Thousands demand higher state pensions in Madrid
- Date: 16th October 2019
- Summary: WOMAN MARCHING AND CHANTING IN SPANISH: "Whoever is in government, the pensions must be defended" VARIOUS OF PEOPLE MARCHING AND CHANTING
- Embargoed: 30th October 2019 12:26
- Keywords: Spain pensioners protest protest pensioners Spain
- Location: MADRID, SPAIN
- City: MADRID, SPAIN
- Country: Spain
- Topics: Budget/Taxation/Revenue,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA002B1CKH8N
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Thousands of protesters from across Spain converged on Madrid on Wednesday (October 16) calling for higher state pensions.
Brandishing signs reading "My pensions, my rights" and "We are all pensioners," protesters took their march to parliament where they chanted and demanded that the government sets the minimum monthly state pension to 1085 euros.
They also called for payments to be raised in line with the real inflation rate.
Some pensioners walked hundreds of kilometres for days to raise awareness about their plight, coming from places as far south as Rota in southern Spain and as far north as Bilbao. Others arrived in buses.
Protesters also called for widowers to receive the full pension of their deceased spouses and workers taking early retirement after contributing over 40 years not to be penalised.
The welfare system's backup fund was decimated by around five years of recession following a burst real estate bubble in 2008, while an ageing population means funds are still being drained from public coffers faster than they can be replenished.
Spain has around 8.7 million retirees claiming a pension and a falling birth rate has prompted concerns of a potential pensions time bomb and calls for a deeper reform of the system than that passed in 2013. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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