Malta is fair to pensioners: A budget that invests in the quality of life of the elderly.
The elderly with support to live in the community
This is a fair budget for pensioners, with measures designed by the elderly themselves, built on their needs while addressing specific realities.
This was the message of Prime Minister Robert Abela during a visit he made to the Day Center in Birkirkara, a center in the community that ensures that the elderly remain active.
The same goal behind the measures announced in Budget 2024 for a Just Malta, with measures that while ensuring a good quality of life for the elderly, support them so that they can continue to live in the villages and towns around Malta and Gozo . The Prime Minister explained that this is what we mean when we talk about a strong economy, because it is with it that we can weigh the people, in fact this is a budget with the largest social expenditure ever made in our country.
This is evidenced by, among others, measures that will result in an increase of €780 to all pensioners, the biggest increase that pensioners have ever received in one year, the increase in the Carer at Home scheme which has increased from €7,000 for €8,000 as well as what will mean an increase in the grant for the elderly who are still living at home or in a nursing home for which they pay entirely out of their own pocket, a grant that will benefit 48,000 elderly people with an investment of € 16 million. As well as other measures that incentivize pensioners who work, with 17,000 pensioners they will enjoy a lower tax burden with an investment of €27 million, which also means that they will enjoy an improvement of almost 30% in their pension.
The Prime Minister also referred to those measures that are more specific such as the increase for widows which is €17 per week and that for people who depend only on the pension of 25 years of service in a disciplined body, who for the first time will get a bonus with the full COLA. Together with those pensioners with injustice before 1962 that we started to address their grievances. He added that this is why this is a budget that we drew up with the people, and that will take us in the long term because while it addresses the realities of the day, it thinks about the Malta of Tomorrow, so that we have a Just Malta for the good of the Community.
