The initiative aimed at increasing pensions is the most urgent of those being promoted by the Executive, ahead of the cancellation of the State Guaranteed Credit (an onerous system for financing university education) and the payment of the historical debt of teachers.

The bill now being debated in the Senate faces numerous stumbling blocks, especially with regard to the distribution of the six percent of the individual contribution.

The government asks to allocate three percent of this amount to social security, one to compensate women and two to increase current pensions, but the right wing only accepts to allocate 0.5 percent to gender equity and that the rest goes to individual savings.

The last option will benefit the Pension Fund Administrators, which for decades have profited from workers’ savings and provided miserable pensions.

The reform project has been in Parliament for about two years and the issue has been under discussion in the country for a decade.

According to official data, in Chile 72 percent of pensions are below the minimum wage and a quarter are below the poverty line.

ef/jav/mem/car