As planned by the 2023 pension reform, the most modest retirees will benefit from an increase in their pension. Be careful, however, because to benefit from it, you must tick a certain number of boxes.
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– 850,000 retirees will benefit from an increase in their pension
Good news for nearly 850,000 retirees. When their September pension is paid on October 9, they will benefit from a increase in their pension which can reach up to 100 euros per month. This revaluation, called exceptional increase (Majex), will be an average of 50 euros per month. A boost decided as part of the 2023 pension reform which has postponed the legal age from 62 to 64 years. If you are concerned, you will receive a letter from the Retirement Insurance from September 16. And even if no action is necessary to see your pension increase, you may be wondering: what are the criteria to benefit from this increase?
It must be admitted that, technically, the measure is complex. To understand all the subtleties, let us first recall the main rules that govern this revaluation. To see your pension increase, you must receive your full rate retirementthat is to say without discount, but also to have contributed (worked) at least 120 quarters. There are also resource conditionsYour basic pension must not exceed 847.57 euros per month and the sum of all your pensions (basic and supplementary) must not exceed 1,352.23 euros per month.
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It is these strict rules that explain why some retirees will not benefit from the exceptional increase in pensions. And to understand what this is about, Capital presents you with some scenarios, validated by the Retirement Insurance. In order to facilitate reading for the cases presented below, each time it is a retiree born in 1948. For this generation, the legal age is 60 years and it is necessary to have validated 160 quarters to receive a full-rate pension.
No full pension
Our pensioner retired at 60 in 2008. He had 150 quarters under the general scheme, whereas to have the full rate, he needed 160. He therefore receives a pension with a reduction, which, according to the rules defined above, deprives him of the exceptional increase.
=> No exceptional increase
Insufficient number of quarters contributed
Let’s keep our retiree born in 1948. He has acquired 160 quarters in total. He therefore left with a full-rate pension. But he only has 115 quarters of contributions (the other 35 were acquired during periods of unemployment, illness, etc. and these are said to be assimilated quarters), all schemes combined. A figure that is important to remember since one of the conditions for benefiting from the increase is to have contributed at least 120 quarters. And even if he was able to leave with a full-rate pension from 2004, our example will not benefit from the exceptional increase, because on his counter, he does not have enough quarters of contributions.
=> No exceptional increase
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Ceilings not to be exceeded
But stopping at these simple criteria would still be too restrictive. To these conditions, we must add that of the resource ceilings not to be exceeded. Let us recall again the rule set to benefit from the exceptional increase. Your basic pension cannot exceed 847.57 euros per month and the sum of all your pensions (basic and supplementary) 1,352.23 euros. A detail that is important, the basic pension amount is capped depending on the number of quarters contributed out of the number of quarters required.
To understand this rule, let’s take the example above of our retiree who has contributed 150 quarters out of the 160 required. To benefit from the Majex, his basic pension must not be higher than 794.60 euros per month (847.57 x (150/160)). The ceiling of the basic pension is therefore reduced because he does not have 160 quarters contributed. Thus, if our example receives a basic pension of 800 euros, he will not be eligible for the exceptional increase because he exceeds the ceiling of 794.60 euros.
=> No exceptional increase
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