The amendment to the act on pensions and annuities from the Social Insurance Fund and certain other acts passed by the Sejm was accepted by the Senate. Now the act has also been signed by the president, which means that from January seniors will be able to submit applications for benefits.
The Act stipulates that seniors will receive their first payments from 1 July 2025. Applications for the benefit can be submitted from 1 January 2025.
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Widow's pension. Will it also cover farmers?
Widow's pension not for everyone
The widow's pension is intended to improve the financial situation of widowed seniors. Until now, after the death of a spouse, it was possible to decide which benefit the retiree would receive – their own or the deceased spouse's. However, this did not change much, especially in cases where spouses received the lowest possible benefits, because one pension was in no way sufficient to support themselves independently.
The mechanism of the widow's pension project is simple. The widow or widower will be able to keep their benefit and will additionally receive 25% of the deceased spouse's benefit.
There is also a second option. In this, the senior citizen will receive the deceased spouse's pension and additionally receive 25% of his/her benefit. This gives the possibility of choosing a more advantageous financial option.
Until now, a widow or widower had the option of choosing one of two benefits – their own or their spouse's benefit in the amount of 85%.
All widowed seniors who are entitled to receive an old-age pension, an agricultural pension, a military pension, a police pension, a pre-retirement benefit, a teacher's compensatory benefit, a disability pension, a military disability pension or a police disability pension are entitled to receive the benefit.
In principle, the pension will be available not only to people who became widowed after the entry into force of the Act, but also to those who lost their spouse several or a dozen years ago.
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Widow's pension: support for seniors after losing a spouse
The Act differs significantly from the draft
It all sounds great, but there is a fly in the ointment. As our readers warn, the act contains certain exclusions.
My husband died 21 years ago. I was 49 then and now it turns out that I won't be able to use the widow's pension – warns our Reader. – It's simply unfair and unfair.
Why was our Reader excluded from the list of beneficiaries? It's all because of the regulation that specifies in detail the age at which one becomes a widow.
Only people who became widowed in a specific age group are entitled to receive a widow's pension. The barrier is retirement age reduced by 5 years. In practice, this means that for women it is 55 years and for men 60 years. According to the provisions of the act, the benefit will be available to them after reaching retirement age.
Another condition is to remain in the marital community until the spouse's death.
Another limit imposed by the Act is the maximum amount of the benefit. The widow's pension will be paid without reducing the sum of benefits to a limit of three times the lowest pension. There has also been a change here, because in the first version of the bill assumed three times the average pension. Currently, this three times the lowest pension is PLN 5,342, in 2025 it will be, according to ZUS forecasts, PLN 5,700.
The next restriction concerns entering into another marriage. The possibility of using a widow's pension ceases on the day of entering into a new marriage. At the same time, the spouse retains the right to the family pension after the previous spouse, but will no longer be able to use this special, advantageous rule of concurrence contained in the Act on widow's pension.
The widow's pension will be introduced in a rolling system, which means that at the beginning, from 1 July 2025 to 31 December 2026, 15% of the additional benefit will be paid, then, from 1 January 2027, it will increase to 25%. In 2028, however, as is expressly provided for in the Act, the Council of Ministers will verify the benefit rate in the concurrence in order to assess the possibility and justification for increasing it.
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