Poor income pushes Argentine retirees to continue working

The very poor income of the majority of retirees Argentina are very far from covering their basic needs, so a growing number are forced to continue working, even nonagenarians, mostly informally and with wages equally depressed.

In Argentina, the retirement age is 60 years for women and 65 for men and there are about 6.5 million retirees, which represents almost the 14% of the total population of the country.

According to official data for the fourth quarter of 2023, of the 19 million employed people (formally and informally) within the urban population of Argentina, a 4.4% They were over 65 years old, many of them retired.

That proportion was 3.9% at the end of 2022, which shows that the weight of the elderly within the workforce has increased in the last year, in a scenario of growing economic deterioration and very high inflation (211.4% in 2023).

“Those who manage to retire in Argentina receive a ridiculous pension, which is far from minimally covering a basket of basic needs. Therefore, even though he receives a pension, he has to work in an informal market, where there is an overexploitation of older people.”Eugenio Semino, defender of the Elderly of the City of Buenos Aires, explains to EFE.

Official records show that, of the 10.6 million people with formal employment, 927,405 are over 60 years of age and, among them, 329,716 are workers who already receive a pension.

Retirees who work formally do so mainly on their own account. Only about 73,405 are, in addition to retirees, employees under a formal contract.

In the official records, there are a surprising 1,332 retirees over 90 years of age with a formal job and the almost 30,000 retired people, mostly women, registered in the private home regime (cleaning and care services) stand out.

Beyond this group that remains in the formal labor market are older adults, retired or not, who work informally, in conditions of extreme fragility, protagonists, according to Semino, of a “humanitarian crisis” of “suffering and exploitation.”

According to official data, the employed population over 60 years of age is 1.7 million people and in this segment the unregistered employment rate was 43.4% to the third quarter of 2023.

Semino pointed out that, in conditions of informality, “The elderly are paid very little” and are given risky or arduous tasks “that do not match their age or chronic pathologies.”

For example, men between 70 and 80 years old are employed as rental car drivers.clandestine” or they do night security guards in buildings, and women are employed in cleaning tasks or in the care of other elderly people – bedridden or with dementia – or children, which requires significant physical and psychological effort.

Others, in extremely precarious situations, accept to do cleaning tasks in pensions or hotels that are “real pigsties” only in exchange for having a room to sleep in and some food.

Even more serious, Semino warns, is the exploitation in clandestine sewing workshops or the use of older adults as “mules” of drug trafficking. Due to economic necessity and without a criminal record, they end up in prison.

In a scenario of severe economic crisis in Argentina and with the highest inflation rate in the world, 65% of retirees receive the minimum pension, which in April was 171,217 pesos (192 dollars / 175 euros), an income that reached to 241,000 pesos for the reinforcement bonus that social security has granted due to the emergency situation.

This income, which represents a 82% of the legal minimum wage in Argentina, marginalizes retirees to destitution.

Retirement spending is one of the most affected by the fiscal adjustment plan of the Government of Javier Milei. Pensions are updated with percentages below the inflation rate, through presidential decrees, until Parliament debates and establishes another updating formula.

The average income among those over 60 years of age with an occupation is below the labor market average and just one 37% above a minimum retirement.

If an older adult receives a minimum pension and also works, the sum of their income does not cover their basic needs, with a basket of food and services that the Ombudsman’s Office for the Elderly calculated at 685,041 pesos for last March.

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