Prague, May 11 (CTK) – One in 12 Czech pensioners live under the income poverty line and among pensioners who live alone one of five faces income poverty, according to the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) data on the living conditions of Czech households.
The living conditions of Czech pensioners have been worsening in the recent years. In 2013, 6.1 percent of pensioners faced income poverty, while last year it was 8.1 percent of them.
One third of the 4.35 million households in the Czech Republic are households of pensioners and nearly half of the pensioners’ households have only one member, and these are threatened with poverty the most.
Thanks to modern medicine, a more healthy life style and improved environment, people live longer in the Czech Republic and they spend more years in retirement. In 2000, Czech men lived 17 years after their retirement and women 23 years on average. In 2015, men and women received old-age pensions for 19 and 27.5 years on average.
Old women are threatened by poverty the most not only because they live longer than men but also because their pensions are by about one fifth lower than those of men.
At the end of 2016, about 2.4 million people received old-age pensions. One fourth of them had lower pensions because they got retired prematurely.
The income poverty line was set at 10,691 crowns for one person and 16,036 for a two-member household a month last year. The average monthly pension was 11,460 crowns.
The biggest part of the incomes of households of pensioners are the pensions they receive from the state. In 2016, the Czech state paid out 389 billion crowns in pensions, or 16.3 billion crowns more than it received in pension insurance payments. In 2015, the debt of the Czech pension account increased by 33.5 billion crowns. In 2014, the debt increased by 43.4 billion crowns.
($1=24.486 crowns)
