Economist Carlos Curi, a finance specialist, explained to the Argentine News Agency: 'The first pension payment is usually much lower than the last salary while active, and inflation, even after the current government's stabilization plan, quickly erodes any pension income.' In judicial matters, there is a criterion that a pension is a substitute for a salary. And judges cannot disregard the movement of active workers' salaries. If the trend continues, an adjustment based exclusively on inflation would consolidate a growing gap between workers' incomes and pension benefits. According to specialists, the current mechanism bets everything on the CPI and neglects variables such as revenue and wage evolution. This could perpetuate the loss of purchasing power of retirees and open a new stage of lawsuits against ANSES. The Argentine pension system is obsolete and has been broken for several decades. 'No government has seriously taken care of improving it sustainably,' warns Curi. 'What should be a stable and sufficient income becomes a constant calculation of survival: adjusting expenses, moving to smaller homes in more accessible neighborhoods, resorting to few dollar savings or renting a property, in those scarce cases when they could and decided to save or invest in bricks,' he points out. He also mentions that resorting to 'continuing to work independently, as alternative solutions in the face of the structural mismanagement of the pension system by different governments and the unpredictability or indiscipline in the savings-investment of workers' is common. In the void of retirement, former workers find 'many challenges ahead, not only in finances or the degradation of social security services, but also, in most cases, with social exclusion resulting from an ageist culture that pierces the hopes of maintaining the pre-retirement lifestyle level,' he states. 'But retirement is not only economic, it is also identity. Buenos Aires, March 22 (NA) – Experts increasingly forecast pension lawsuits as a consequence of the pension calculation modality, which remains two months behind. With the new formula coming into effect, monthly adjustments for pensions, pensions, and allowances are calculated solely based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from two months prior. But pension legislation defines that pensions must reflect the evolution of wages, since it is a deferred salary. Between April 2024 and August 2025, wages measured by the Remuneration of Stable Workers grew by 117%, while accumulated inflation was 71%. The 46 percentage point difference reflects a sustained loss of purchasing power for retirees. This generates tensions in the judicial system and an increasing number of lawsuits against the state, according to specialists. This is added to the structural weaknesses of the pension system. 'The replacement rate is very low compared to that of our neighboring countries, Chile and Uruguay. After decades of work, many Argentines feel they lose part of their social role when leaving the company or profession,' Curi stated. Curi said that 'the fundamental question is whether, as a society, government, corporations, and individuals, we are willing to ignore the abyss of retirement or if we can build a sustainable pension system, supported by its three basic pillars: universal income, corporate retirement plans, and long-term individual investment programs, that return to future retirees what they really deserve: economic security and quality of life.' And he warned that 'fiscal greed has been so significant that no government, in this century so far, has even proposed tax exemptions for the last two pillars, which are the ones that make a difference when jumping into retirement.'
