Around 56,000 elderly beneficiaries are this week receiving more than €31 million in payments of two social benefits that have been improved by Budget 2026 measures.
The benefits are the Grant for the Elderly aged 75 years or over and the Bonus for those persons who are not entitled to the contributory pension because they did not have sufficient contributions to qualify. The payments include rate increases.
Over the time these two benefits have been in place, their beneficiaries have been paid a total of more than €226 million. In addition to the overall increase in beneficiaries, especially of the Senior Citizens’ Grant, in recent years there has been a substantial improvement in the rates of both benefits.
The increase in the rates of the Grant for the Elderly is €75, now reaching €425 per year for persons aged between 75 and 79 years and €525 per year for those aged 80 years or over.
A total of 42,892 people are benefiting, living in their own homes or with relatives or paying out of pocket to live in private care homes. In total, payments amount to €20.4 million, which will continue to increase throughout the year as more people reach the age of eligibility for the first time or for a higher rate.
In the case of the bonus for those persons who are not entitled to a contributory pension because they did not have sufficient contributions to qualify, the increase is €50 in the nine different rates that are paid, which now vary from a minimum of €600 for those who have paid up to one year of stamps to €1,050 for those who have paid up to nine years of stamps. This is the eighth time that the rates have been increased since this bonus began to be given in 2015.
A total of 13,119 people, mostly married women, are receiving €10.7 million. This bonus is paid once a year, but those who reach the age during the year and qualify, the amount paid will be pro-rata. From the following year, the full amount will be paid.
Since 2022 there has been a reduction in the number of beneficiaries of this bonus because they began to be paid the lower pension rate after benefiting from Budget measures in 2021 and 2022 which took into account stamps they had paid when they were in employment, even before the age of 18.
This reduction is expected to continue throughout this year as a result of a new measure that removed the requirement for a person to be working to pay missing contributions in order to reach the minimum of 10 years of service to qualify for a pension. For this purpose, a special committee has been set up in the Department of Social Security to scrutinise the applications that have been coming in since the beginning of the year. So far, around 200 applications have already been accepted. This measure is expected to be extended in the near future.
Minister for Social Policy and Children’s Rights Michael Falzon reiterated that these benefits and the improvements made to them are part of a whole chain of measures that have been implemented in recent years and increases that have been given to pensioners and the elderly in recent years. He said that, “It is no wonder that the lowest pension paid today to those who do not have missing contributions is more than the highest pension that was paid in 2013.”
Minister Falzon concluded by saying that the Government will remain committed to continuing to improve pensions and social benefits because this is also a means of improving the quality of life of the Maltese and Gozitans.
