José Antonio, a Spaniard who started working at 14, retired early at 61 and claims that an error in the calculation of his pension by the Spanish Social Security left him receiving about 600 euros less per month than expected, which represents a loss of 7,200 euros per year. The pension assigned to him was set at 1,639.66 euros gross per month (1,450.61 euros net), when he expected to receive a value close to 2,100 euros.
The situation originated in 2009, when José Antonio lost his job at 53 during the economic crisis. Unable to return to the labor market and after exhausting his unemployment benefit, he signed a Special Agreement with Spanish Social Security, a mechanism that allows continuing to pay contributions even without active work. According to his account, a clerk advised him to pay about 400 euros monthly to maintain the contribution base, with the expectation of a pension around 2,100 euros.
After requesting early retirement, a 24% reduction was applied to the pension amount, which is compatible with Spanish legislation for those who retire four years before the ordinary age. José Antonio believes that Social Security used an incorrect contribution period to calculate the pension base. When he went to the services to request a review, a clerk allegedly acknowledged the error, but the amount was not corrected. The Provincial Directorate responded that the applicable legislation did not allow changing the early retirement cut under the circumstances presented.
The article notes that the case occurred in Spain and that Spanish rules should not be transposed to Portugal, since the two countries have different systems and calculation formulas. The case shows a difference between the expectation created and the final amount assigned, but does not allow stating as a proven fact that Spanish Social Security committed an error or that this alleged error costs exactly 600 euros per month.
