SATISFACTION is being registered across the country as those who retired with minimum wage earnings or close to that have a 50 per cent increase on what they can expect each month.

Other pensioners in a different category will have to be reimbursed or paid more as the government raises lumpsum payments from 33 per cent to 40 per cent.

These are not marginal measures for anyone familiar with problems that most governments get with pension funds and assurance of such flows.

Raising these payment levels has been on the cards for considerable period of a time, as May Day addresses by trade unions and responses by the president have usually focused on such issues.

There is the matter of the overall minimum wage but that is an issue for another day, as all these arrangements are reviewed in a periodic manner, with sustainability the core aspect of possibility for enhancing pensions or wages.

The difference is that wages come from core government finances while pensions have specific funds, peculiar fiscal dynamics.

There are still gaps to be covered before the government can restore older expectations, with a view to revising lumpsum payments so that retirees have 50 per cent lumpsum payments upon departure from paid employment.

That is definitely a goal to be aspired to, to be worked upon but no one can ascertain its feasibility even in the coming half decade.

There was a semblance of chaos with a vast reduction of lumpsum payments and a slow climbing back, owing to contentious issues of entitlements and fiscal projections over short, medium term.

As legislators were demanding a timeframe for the government to address numerous complaints about the pension calculation formula affecting public servants, this move is a genuine response, even if it doesn’t exactly quench their thirst.

That it has not been easy for the relevant authorities to make the decision for a formal rollout is that the Labour minister said that the changes were made in the fiscal plan for 2022/2023.

Additional improvements were introduced in the 2024/25 fiscal plan, with monthly pensions being increased by 2.0 per cent in line with current laws, regulations. It couldn’t be rolled out quickly.

When the minister says that the government assesses the sustainability of pension funds every three years as required by law, to ensure ability to enhance benefits without compromising their long-term viability, there is more than meets the eye.

The core issue is that at a certain point successive governments were too liberal with pension funds for outlays that appear exciting to onlookers, but not quite so when it comes to return on investment.

What is significant is that the current authorities moved to diminish the state debt to pension funds, and definitely stop dispersing funds to things like factory projects.

There was an issue about the living conditions of retirees, where the range of demands and their underlying assumptions was intriguing, and views of legislators tended to be quite divergent.

They basically were saying that the current pension level of 150,000/- was still insufficient, even as it is half of the public sector minimum wage.

In the private sector, such a sum is considered well above minimum pay, though casual labour can collect far more than that in a month.

Assured employment doesn’t always go with high amounts of pay, while casual work can at times offer more to a creative individual.

How far pensioners can also do auxiliary work instead of relying on pensions is clearly known to everyone, so the idea of offering a living wage there isn’t easy to substantiate.

Again, with someone who did his or her homework during previous decades, things like raising children could have been resolved by that time.

But then this isn’t always the case, which upsets a routine definition of a pensioner’s living wage.