The average Social Security pension in the system in March was 1,251.5 euros per month, 5% more than a year ago thanks to the revaluation carried out at the beginning of the year. This average corresponds to the amount of the different types of pension (retirement, permanent disability, widowhood, orphanhood and in favour of family members).

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Average pension rises by almost 5% in one year

Compared with March 2019, the year before the pandemic, the average pension has increased by 27%. If we take as a reference the entry into force of Law 21/2021, which guarantees the purchasing power of pensions, the average pension in the system has increased by 21.4% (March 2021), thanks largely to the revaluation in line with the CPI, applied over the last 3 years.

The monthly payroll of Social Security contributory benefits this March was 12,693.1 million euros, for the ordinary monthly payment, a figure equivalent to 11.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in March.

By type of pension
Almost three-quarters of the contributory pension payroll corresponds to retirement pensions, as usual. Specifically, these pensions account for 73.2% of the payroll, 9,288 million euros. Widow’s and widower’s pensions accounted for 2,102.8 million euros, while permanent disability benefits amounted to 1,097.6 million euros, orphan’s pensions to 170.9 million euros and benefits for family members to 33.8 million euros.

Of the 10.1 million contributory pensions paid, 6.5 million are retirement pensions, 2.4 million are widows’ pensions, and the rest are permanent disability pensions (945,077), orphan’s pensions (341,283) and family allowances (45,737). The number of pensions is growing at a year-on-year rate of 1.2%.

In March, the number of pensioners was 9.2 million. Of these, 4.6 million are men and 4.5 million are women. The ratio of pensions per pensioner remains at 1.1 benefits per person.

The retirement pension is the main pension for 6.3 million people. Of these, 60% are men; in the case of the widow’s pension, of the 1.5 million people who receive it as their main benefit, 96% are women. On the other hand, there are 940,547 recipients of permanent disability, 323,449 of orphan’s pension, and 45,128 in favour of family members.

Average pension
As already mentioned, the average pension of the system, in the third month of the year, stands at 1,251.5 euros per month, or 5%.

The average retirement pension, meanwhile, is 1,438.2 euros. By schemes, the average retirement pension from the General Scheme is 1,598 euros per month, while the lowest is recorded by the Self-Employed Scheme, with 960.4 euros. In the Coal Mining sector, the average monthly retirement pension is 2,797.2 euros, and 1,592.3 euros in the Sea Scheme. The average amount of new pension registrations in the system in February 2024 (latest data) was 1,562.7 euros per month.

In March, the average widow’s pension reached 894 euros per month.

Of the new registrations in January and February (59,189), 61.7% were at ordinary age (36,504), while 10.5% corresponded to the delayed retirement mode, compared with 4.8% in 2019.

The average time taken to resolve the files in February (latest available data) was 15.46 days in the case of retirement pensions and 11.21 days in the case of widows’ and widowers’ pensions. It should be borne in mind that the maximum resolution period for these procedures, according to RD 286/2003 of 7 March and RD 1192/2021 of 3 August, is 90 days for both retirement and widowhood benefits.

With the gender gap supplement
In March, 708,513 pensions have the supplement for the reduction of the gender gap, 90% of whose holders are women (638,245). The average monthly amount of this pension supplement is 71 euros. Of the

708,513 supplementary pensions, 23.7% correspond to pensioners with one child (167,998), who previously did not have access to the maternity supplement. 47.1% of beneficiaries have two children (333,401), 19% have three (134,816) and 10.2% have four children (72,298).

This supplement, in force since February 2021, consists of a fixed amount, after the revaluation applied in 2024, of 33.20 euros per month per child. It is applied for at the same time as the pension is claimed.

Passive Classes
For its part, the monthly payroll for pensions from the Pensioners’ Pension Scheme amounted to 1,571.9 million euros in February, the latest data available. This figure represents an increase of 99.8 million euros over the previous year, 6.8% more.

The number of pensions in force was 707,822, 15,064 pensions more than in the same month of the previous year (2.2% annual variation).

The State Pension Scheme includes military personnel and civilian staff of the General State Administration, the Justice Administration, the Cortes Generales and other constitutional or state bodies, as well as civil servants transferred to the autonomous communities.