The Ministry for Social Policy and Children’s Rights has announced that two adjustment processes have been closed for this year through the payments with the additional increases in the widow’s pension that will be made at the end of this week and in the service pension that was given during the past week.
The Minister for Social Policy and Children’s Rights, Michael Falzon, announced this during a news conference. Here, it was recalled the change that this government made in the process that was started in 2022 so that widowed pensioners will gradually start receiving the full pension that their spouses would have received if they were still alive.
In total, 7,000 widows will have benefited who saw an additional increase in their pension in addition to the €15 per week increase they received like all pensioners.
The process of gradual adjustment for widows and service pensioners is half way through and will be fully concluded in another three years. Meanwhile, those widows who are not yet 61 years old are enjoying an exemption in the payment of the tax which also started to count from this year as another measure of the 2024 Budget.
Minister Michael Falzon also spoke about the payments linked to the service pension, where a total of 6,500 service pensioners are benefiting who have seen an additional increase in their pension in addition to the €15 per week increase they took as pensioners.
Service pensioners will see the amount of their service pension which is not taken into account for the purpose of the social security pension increase by another €200.
This is while the service pensioners who have been boarded-out and came out with the service pension early due to illness, will start to see the aforementioned adjustment of the part of the computed pension made after twelve years from when they they started getting the service pension and not when they turn 72.
“This is a government that delivers what it promises. We have carried out every social measure that we have promised over the last eleven years, and more than that we have introduced new ones, because we have continued to update ourselves with the social realities of the moment. This is evidenced by families and pensioners because they know who was there for them in the most challenging times,” concluded Minister Michael Falzon.
