Thousands of workers who started working at a young age today face significant cuts to their early retirement pensions. Despite having contributed for decades, they are penalized for retiring before the legal age, even in cases of involuntary dismissal.
This is the case of Luis Ortiga, a Spanish retiree who dedicated more than 45 years of his life to work and ended up retiring early and involuntarily. At the age of 61, after a long and demanding career, he saw his pension reduced by 24%, as provided for in the General Social Security Law.
A lifetime of work
Ortiga started working at the age of 14, working hours that reached 48 hours a week, well above what would be allowed today. His testimony, published on the ASJUBI40 association’s YouTube channel, denounces what he considers “discrimination” against those who contributed most to the system, according to the Spanish digital newspaper Noticias Trabajo.
“After more than 45 years of working and paying, I had to retire early and lost almost a quarter of my pension”, he explains. And he adds that the current system punishes precisely those who contributed the most, forcing them to live with less, even after a lifetime of effort.
Penalties that can reach 30%
Spanish law provides for reduction coefficients applied to early retirements, varying according to the number of years of contributions, the type of retirement (voluntary or involuntary) and the number of months advanced in relation to the legal age. The sooner the worker retires and the fewer years he has of discounts, the greater the cut. In the case of Luis, with more than 45 years of contributions, the penalty was 24%. But there are cases in which the cut can reach 30%, especially for those under 38 and a half years of discounts.
“This is not an exceptional situation”, he laments. “This is what happens to thousands of people who started working at the age of 14 or 15 and worked 42, 45 and even 48 hour weeks, which today would be considered slavery.”
The weight of exceptions
Luis Ortiga also denounces what he considers to be an evident inequality between workers, according to the same source. There are eight special Spanish Social Security schemes, such as those for miners, flight staff, artists, bullfighters, police officers, railway workers, firefighters and civil servants, which allow early retirement with 100% of the pension, in some cases at age 59 or 60, as long as they have at least 35 years of contributions.
“This only has one name: discrimination”, says the retiree, who defends the creation of a new special regime for workers with long contributory careers, allowing them to retire without penalties.
“This is not a question of costs, it is of justice”
For this retiree, the problem is not the economic impact, but the lack of equity and dignity. “This isn’t about costs, it’s about justice”, he summarizes. Luis considers it unfair that those who contributed the most throughout their lives are the most penalized at the time of retirement.
According to the Spanish Ministry of Social Security, in the first months of 2025 alone, 155,131 people retired, 44,940 of which through early retirement, that is, almost one in every three workers chooses to retire early, often out of necessity and not out of choice, the .
What if it happened in Portugal?
In Portugal, Luis’ situation would have similar contours. Here too, there are penalties for early retirement, both in the general Social Security regime and in the Caixa Geral de Aposentações. Portuguese legislation provides for permanent reductions in the value of the pension for those who retire before the legal age (in 2025, set at 66 years and 7 months). These reductions depend on the years of discounts and the number of months in advance. The penalty is 0.5% for each month of early retirement, which is equivalent to 6% per year.
However, there are exceptions. Anyone who has at least 40 years of contributions and reaches a minimum age of 60 can retire early without penalty, as long as the sum of age and years of deductions is equal to or greater than 100 (the so-called “100 rule”).
Differences that count
Unlike the Spanish system, Portugal has been applying compensation mechanisms for long careers. Still, many workers who started early continue to feel unfairly treated, especially when they are forced into early retirement due to long-term unemployment.
In these cases, even with 40 or more years of deductions, they may face cuts of 10% to 30% in their pension, depending on the applicable rules and the date of the request.
The same feeling of injustice
If Luis’ case had occurred in Portugal, the result could vary depending on the number of years of discounts and the exact retirement age. But, in practice, here too, those who started working at a young age and were forced to leave the job market early can be penalized.
In both Spain and Portugal, the complaint is the same: those who worked the most and contributed the most feel punished at a time when they should rest. A reality that many, like Luis, continue to consider not just a technical error, but a matter of social justice.
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