Spain raises the minimum wage, the 8 and the pension 025 – W Radio

Madrid, 30 dec (EFE).- The Spanish Government today approved a rise of 8 % of the minimum wage, which will be set in 2017 in 707,60 euros per month, while pensions will rise by 0.25 percent, which represents the minimum increment set in the Spanish law.

as announced today by the president of the Spanish Government, Mariano Rajoy (PP, conservative, centre-right), after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers, in which the president conducted an assessment of the political and economic situation of the country.

Both climbs are possible thanks to the improvement experienced by the Spanish economy, said Rajoy, who called 2016 as “the year of uncertainty”, after the unprecedented political blockade that the country suffered for the lack of agreement between the parties.

The raising of the minimum wage is the highest in the past 30 years and responds to a pact between the Government and the main opposition party, the socialist PSOE, as a counterpart to the support of this to the deficit targets and expenditure ceilings of the State for 2017.

The rise of the pensions of 0.25 %, strongly criticized by opposition parties and the Spanish trade unions, is the minimal collection by Spanish law and it was already put forward by the Spanish Government in the draft budget submitted to Brussels in October.

With this rise, pensioners spaniards lose 1.25% of purchasing power in 2016, as the climb passed today is lower than the rate of inflation, which has closed this year (1.5 % in December).

The Spanish Government today approved an agreement of non-availability to meet the expense of 2017 at the ceiling of expenditure fixed in 118.337 million euros (124.818 million dollars) in the hope that in the next few months, the PP -which governs in a minority – to reach an agreement with the rest of the forces to take forward the General State Budget of the next year.

Rajoy has not specified the amount of the adjustment, though presumably it will be 5,000 million euros (5.271 million dollars) which is the amount at which it has reduced the ceiling of expenditure to 2016. EFE

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