The left’s second success in Tusk’s government. And yet not everyone is delighted
The left has recorded its second success in Donald Tusk’s government. After restoring in vitro financing, the Senate has adopted the flagship project of left-wing circles, the widow’s pension, without amendments. Slightly trimmed by the government, but it is still a big deal. Meanwhile, left-wing circles do not seem at all delighted with it.
The Left-wing Political Critique published an article by Katarzyna Przyborska under the telling title “Widow’s pension – such success is a failure”. The author argues that widow’s pension is a privilege for an already privileged part of society, i.e. for people who entered into marriage and remained in it until the death of their spouse.
Indeed, only in such a situation will seniors be entitled to a widow’s pension. People living in informal homosexual or heterosexual relationships, single parents, divorcees and those who have never had a life partner will not qualify for a widow’s pension. The author not only criticized this project as not very left-wing, but also accused the Left of creating legal inequalities and promoting a conservative vision of the family.
“You should have stopped being picky and found yourself a husband, or not gotten divorced and ‘carried your cross’, even if he drank and fought, because if you got divorced, your pension would be gone? You should have stopped messing around with conservative society, not quarreled, but denied yourself and entered into marriage with someone of the opposite sex? Lived a lie because it paid off more?” – wonders the author of the article.
The widow’s pension project does not actually solve the problems of all elderly people, but according to the ministry’s estimates, up to 2 million pensioners could benefit from this solution.
And those in the lower income bracket, because only those whose benefits will not exceed three times the minimum pension will be able to benefit from the solution. So the left should be very satisfied with this. So where does this criticism come from?
