Senior policy is one of the key areas of activity of the Ministry of Family and Social Policy. The elderly are a special group that built the Polish economy for many years, created the labour market, and brought successive generations of Poles to the world. Today they deserve to live a carefree and decent life.

In the current difficult time, in the face of price rises caused by the war in Ukraine and the policy pursued by Kremlin, and before that - by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is a role of a responsible State to care for the safety of its residents, also in financial terms.

"This is what accompanied our introduction of, first, the 13^th pension pay in 2019, and the 14^th pension pay following that. The latter, let me say that again, has been already guaranteed in the law and will be paid every year. I also wish to highlight that the full amount of this year's "fourteenth" is at the record level of PLN 2,650 gross. This is how we want to even better safeguard the situation of Polish seniors," says Deputy Minister of Family and Social Policy Stanisław Szwed. 

The full amount of the fourteenth pension pay of PLN 2,650 is paid to pensioners who receive pension of up to PLN 2,900 gross. Above that amount, the payout will be subject to the "złoty for złoty" principle, i.e. the 14^th pension pay will be reduced by the amount in excess of PLN 2,900 gross, with the final amount to be at least PLN 50.

Financial support for seniors

Paid for the first time in 2019, the 13^th pension pay is an additional benefit for all pensioners in Poland (guaranteed by legislation since 2020). It is paid to some 9.7 million people in the amount of the lowest pension as of 1 March of a given year. Between 2019 and 2022, the cost of the 13^th pension pay amounted to around PLN 47.8 billion, and to PLN 15.4 billion in 2023.

Paid for the first time in 2021, the 14^th pension pay was initially meant as one-off support, but it has become a regular part of the benefit catalogue just like the 13^th pension pay.

Furthermore, in 2023 we allocated a record high amount of some PLN 44.15 billion to the adjustment of pension benefits. From 1 March 2023 on, the lowest pension is PLN 1,588.44, an increase by PLN 700 compared with 2015.

"In 2019, we also introduced a new complementary parental benefit in the maximum amount of the lowest pension paid to parents who devoted themselves to bringing up at least 4 children while either giving up their professional career or working for a short time to acquire the right to at least the lowest pension," reminds the Deputy Minister.

The benefit was awarded under the Mom4+ programme to some 75,500 people, reaching a total of PLN 2.1 billion.

Activity worth as much as gold

"At the Ministry of Family and Social Policy we are strongly committed to creating space that is friendly to elderly people and offers various forms of activity – from physical, to educational, to social and intergeneration integration. This is to be achieved by, among others, the Ministry's programmes Senior+ and Active+ which are an important part of the State's senior policy," says Deputy Minister Stanisław Szwed.

Between 2015 and 2022, some 1,200 Day Care Homes and Senior+ Clubs were created across Poland, offering places to nearly 28,000 programme participants. The Active+ programme involved nearly 1,150 projects implemented in 2021-2023 for nearly 710,000 elderly people.

Actions of this type enable elderly people to fully participate in the life their local communities, and to feel important and needed," emphasised the Deputy Minister. 

Important changes for pensioners

In 2017, the PiS government gave the Poles back the freedom to choose when they wish to retire by repealing the decision of Donald Tusk's government to increase the retirement age for women and men to the age of 67.

Now everyone can take their own decision whether to retire or stay on the labour market, taking into account their health, aptitude and capabilities. To encourage this, the government introduced PIT-0 for seniors in 2022.

"Today we are proposing the introduction of the so-called seniority pensions. We want seniority retirement to be possible after 38 years of work for women and 43 years of work for men. Everyone will be free to decide whether they want to benefit from the seniority pension or wait until the state retirement age, thus saving up for their retirement for longer," says Deputy Minister Stanisław Szwed.

Another step to improve the situation of seniors in Poland was the signature of the amendment to the bridging pension act by President Andrzej Duda. This means that the benefit will be available also to persons who did not have the years of employment in special conditions before 1 January 1999, thus extending the right to the bridging pension to a much wider group of people.

In practice, this means repealing the expiring character of the benefit, which in turn can contribute to increasing the appeal of work in special conditions and of a special character, as the right to the bridging pension will be extended to younger workers.

Seniors deserve all the best

As mentioned by Deputy Minister of Family Stanisław Szwed, the financial support, the support of activity and care of seniors are all aimed at ensuring that seniors enjoy safety, sense of belonging and dignity. Elderly people who for many years worked and built the Polish economy, who brought up successive generations of Poles simply deserve that.