Poor or work. What are the limits in the widow’s pension?

Over 550 thousand Seniors have already received a new benefit – a widow’s pension, i.e. a combination of payments of a survivor’s pension with another benefit, e.g. with pensions. Only this year the government is to allocate PLN 4.2 billion to pay benefits.

Pensioners are known to grant a new benefit, as well as its limits. The widow of the pension will not be paid if the widow or widower gets a benefit exceeding three times the lowest pension. Currently, it is PLN 5,636.73. And in this matter one of the widows sent a petition to the Sejm.

Coalition promises and reality

In the petition, the pensioner recalled their pre -election promises to MPs of the Civic Coalition. “You emphasized the importance of introducing a widow of a pension for those who remained alone after the death of the spouse,” writes the author of the petition and reminds that in the original version of the bill assumed a limit of three times the average pension (i.e. about PLN 10,000). During work on the regulations, it was significantly reduced.

It is worth recalling that the limit also includes benefits paid by foreign institutions, as well as other than one -off benefits and allowances granted under the Act or separate provisions: care allowance or carbon equivalent.

According to the widow, after the March indexation of her pension, which she worked all her life, exceeds the applicable limit of the three lowest pensions by PLN 200. This means that from the pension widow threads, and this on average PLN 354.43 more monthly.

Change in the standard of living, but only a certain group of pensioners

“I can’t understand why such a criterion has been introduced (the worst of the possible) for persistent retirement? My current retirement is the result of the money I accumulated in ZUS. In addition, a sense of harm and discrimination is influenced by the fact that my husband worked in death at the age of 60 and also paid retirement contributions, but he did not take a single retirement, because he died before reaching the retirement age. Is it fine that the wife after her husband’s death cannot receive the money accumulated on her husband’s account in ZUS? ” – asks the senior in the petition.

The Sejm Office of Expertise and Assessment of the Effects of Adjustment has prepared an answer. Lawyers are of the opinion that the widow is a kind of support, but not for everyone, but for poorer pensioners, i.e. those whose spouses had a higher benefit. Their loss is also a loss of a significant part of the common home budget revenues. The widow’s pension is to fill this gap.

Longer professional activity without introducing regulations

By introducing limits, MPs also had a different aspect in mind – they have long work. Donald Tusk’s government is doing what he can to extend the amount of years worked without introducing top -down regulations. According to the parliamentary legal opinion, the Sejm is afraid that the beneficiaries of the Widow’s disability pension “will not be interested in increasing the amount of their own benefits through longer professional activity.”

This is why the Sejm lawyers advise MPs not to make changes to the regulations. This is also the plan of the minister of the family of Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk: it assumes postponing the decision to retire and introduce voluntary incentives. The limits of the widow’s pension are therefore not accidental. Complaints about the age limit in the Wdowiej pension were described by the infotuba.pl portal.

The widow’s pension is combined benefits – 100 percent. own benefits and 15 percent benefits due to the deceased spouse, i.e. a survivor’s pension or vice versa (coincidence). It is only from 2027 that the participation of the second benefit in the widow is to be increased to 25 percent. The family department announced the program only in 2028.