Colombia’s congress is planing to put a cap on pensions of the country’s wealthiest, financial paper, Portfolio reported Tuesday.
A pending law would drastically lower the maximum pension from 25 to 10 times the minimum legal wage, affecting approximately 3% of the population.
Portfolio reported that Colombians can currently receive a maximum pension of the equivalent of $7,860. If the new law is passed, this number would decrease to approximately $3,144 resulting in a 40% pension decrease.
“Nobody could receive a pension of more than 10 minimum monthly wages,” said Chamber representative Didier Burgos.
According to Burgos who filed for the new cap in pension, out of a population of 45 million people in Colombia, three percent of the country’s gross domestic product is spent on the 1.4 million people who collect pension.
“There’s an inequality which will obviously attract attention,” the congressman said.
Burgos went on to say that the amount of money invested in current pensioners is similar to what the national budget spends “on education or national defense.”
In order for the law to change, the initiative must pass several congressional debates before being put into practice.