Social Security

Revaluation of pensions:

1. Contributory pensions paid by the Social Security system, will be increased by 1% in 2012 in accordance with the provisions of Article 48 of the Consolidated Text of the General Social Security Act.

The amounts for the limits for collecting state pensions, the income limits for granting minimum supplements and limits for family Social Security benefits for dependent children will experience an identical percentage increase.

2. The amounts of non-concurrent minimum pensions of the Social Security system, non-contributory pensions and the expired Compulsory Old Age and Disability Insurance (SOVI), will also increase by 1%. Likewise, the 1% increase will apply to Social Security benefits for dependent children aged 18 or over with a degree of disability greater than or equal to 65%, as well as the mobility benefit and compensation for travelling expenses. The amount of these pensions and benefits, onto which the stated increase must be applied, will be the result of increasing the amount in force as at 31 December 2010 by 2.9%, in accordance with the actual Consumer Price Index (CPI) during the period from November 2010 to November 2011.

3. The following state pensions are exempt from the increase provided for in paragraph 1:

• Pensions paid by any of the welfare schemes or systems listed in Article 42 of Law 37/1988, of 28 December, of the General State Budget for 1989, whose full monthly amount, added, where appropriate, to the full monthly amount of other state pensions received by their beneficiary, exceeds the monthly collection limit for state pensions set forth in Appendix I of Royal Decree-Law 20/2011, of 30 December.
  
  The provisions of the foregoing paragraph will not apply to special pensions from the Scheme of Passive Classes of the State and Social Security arising from acts of terrorism, or special pensions arising from terrorist attacks granted under the terms of Royal Decree-Law 6/2006, of 23 June, or pensions granted by virtue of the Forty-Third Additional Provision of Law 62/2003, of 30 December, on Fiscal, Administrative and Social Order Measures.

• Pensions from the expired SOVI when they are concurrent with other state pensions, except when they are concurrent with widowhood pensions from one of the Social Security schemes, or with any of these pensions and, in addition, with any other state widowhood pension.
  
  To this end, financial benefits granted under the terms of Law 3/2005, of 18 March, pensions received by partially or first degree disabled mutilated persons as a result of the Spanish Civil War, irrespective of the governing legislation, third party assistance benefits provided for in Law 13/1982, of 17 April, on Social Integration of Disabled People, or special pensions arising from acts of terrorism are not deemed to be concurrent pensions.
  
  Notwithstanding the provisions of the foregoing paragraph, when the sum of all the concurrent pensions and the amount of the aforementioned SOVI, after being revalued, is less than the amount set in 2012 for the pension of said concurrent insurance, all calculated on an annual basis, the SOVI pension will be revalued by an amount equal to the resulting difference. This difference may not be consolidated, and it will be absorbed with any increase to the interested party´s earnings, whether through revaluation or the granting of new periodic benefits.

Maintaining the purchasing power of the pensions:

Recipients of minimum supplements for Social Security pensions will receive, before 1 April 2012 and in a lump-sum payment, an amount equal to the difference between the pension received in 2011 and the pension they would have received if the 2.9% increase had been applied to the minimum amounts of said pensions, in accordance with the actual Consumer Price Index (CPI) during the period from November 2010 to November 2011.

In said financial year, the provisions of the foregoing paragraph will likewise apply to beneficiaries of non-contributory Social Security benefits, non-concurrent SOVI pensions, and recipients of Social Security benefits for dependent children aged 18 or over with a degree of disability greater than or equal to 65%, as well as the mobility benefit and compensation for travelling expenses.