At a time when the justice of early retirements and penalties applied to those who have worked their entire lives is also being discussed in Portugal, a new case from Spain reignites the debate. A woman with a 44-year contributory career saw her pension drastically penalized after being forced to retire before the legal age, according to the digital newspaper Noticias Trabajo.
Laura Allué contributed to Spanish Social Security for 44 years, a period that, as she explains, should put her close to the maximum pension, currently close to 3,000 euros. However, at the age of 59 she was fired and, unable to return to the job market, she ended up being forced into involuntary early retirement.
The reality he described in a television interview was harsh: “they penalized me with 27% of my pension”, he stated, cited by the same source. Even with almost half a century of discounts, he considers that the pension awarded to him is far below the expected value. Recalling that she worked “from Monday to Saturday, between eight and nine hours a day”, she confessed to feeling defrauded by the system.
A lifetime to be discounted and a permanent penalty
During the program, Laura said: “I’m tired of this”, highlighting that, despite her 44-year contribution career, the reduction applied will have an impact for the rest of her life. It also reinforced the idea that many workers just want a dignified retirement after decades of work.
Cases like Laura’s are not isolated. There are other reports from pensioners, including Paco Crespo, who was forced to retire at 62 with a full career of discounts which, even so, resulted in significant penalties, according to .
Requests for legislative changes
In a debate on the Catalan television TV3, lawyer Marta Barreda drew attention to the impact of these penalties throughout the lives of retirees. He considered that “these people are being punished”, arguing that they should continue to fight for greater equity and the support of political parties.
The specialist also left clear advice: try to achieve the right to the full amount of the pension, avoiding cuts that last forever. For Barreda, this should be a priority in a system that increasingly penalizes those who are forced to leave the job market prematurely.
A discussion that also interests Portugal
As in Spain, there is also a debate in Portugal about the coefficients that reduce the value of early pensions, especially in the case of long contributory careers. Many workers who started working as teenagers face significant cuts if they have to retire due to unemployment or professional burnout.
Therefore, cases like Laura Allué’s put the issue back on the public agenda and show that the discussion about dignified reforms is not just Spanish, but is transversal to many European countries, including Portugal, where thousands of people expect long careers to be duly valued.
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