Maduro announces plan to recover purchasing power of retirees and pensioners

Nicolas Maduro, The National
Nicholas Maduro. Photo: EFE

Nicolás Maduro reported this wednesday you are preparing for the first of May a “special plan” to recover “the purchasing power of retirees and pensioners.”

“We have to continue recovering salaries, salary tables and collective contracts in a sustainable way (…) controlling inflation and recovering and advancing social security,” he stressed in Miraflores.

Maduro made the announcement in front of hundreds of Chavistas who arrived at the presidential palace following marching through Caracas to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the return to power of then President Hugo Chávez, following the coup of the April 11, 2002.

“Do not underestimate the revolutionary capacity of the Chavista people, of the Venezuelan people. Do not underestimate the conscience, the values, do not underestimate the bravery and the collective courage of our people », he said.

He added that the country owes its construction and reconstruction to the events of that time.

“If it had not been for that victory, this town would not have lived the glory of building and rebuilding itself. Then we had this stage that we have lived, we had to face them (opponents of Chavismo), confuse them (confront them), we confuse them. We had a hard time, we had a rash, but here what we are going is forward, “said the official.

Minimum wage increase

At the beginning of March Nicolás Maduro raised the minimum wage and the pension from 7 bolívares ($1.6) to 130 bolívares ($30). However, this increase is still insufficient for those who receive it -fundamentally public employees and pensioners-, according to experts.

With the current salary, Venezuelans still do not reach the 1.90 dollars a day set by the World Bank to consider getting out of extreme poverty by income range, although they are much closer with the current salary, going from 0 $.05 to $0.96 per day.

Óscar Meza, director of the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), reported on April 20 that the cost of the Food Basket for March was 322.57 dollars, that is, 612,900. 945 bolivars.

“To access the Food Basket in March, 340.50 minimum wages were required,” Meza said in an interview with Román Lozinski in the Circuit Hits of Union Radio.

He explained that more than 10 dollars or more than 20 million bolivares per day are required to cover the cost of food in the country.

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