Social security faces reform

  • 2010-02-22
  • TBT Staff

The reforms would see an increase in the retirement age at a time many Lithuanian fear the social insurance fund is on the verge of default. (Photo from archive).

VILNIUS - Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius has announce dhis intentions to reform SODRA, the national insurance company and main social security mechanism.

Most controversially, the changes would include increasing the retirement age from 60 for women and 62.5 for men to 65. The change would take place in phases, the prime minister told Lithuania's national broadcaster LTV.

Within the next 20 years, the retirement age would probably reach 67, Kubilius said.

He said that more than a half dozen reforms would be in the works for the institution this year.

The changes come at a time when many Lithuanians worry that SODRA is on the verge of bankruptcy and that their pension funds may not be secure.

A recent poll released byb Veidas, a weekly publication, found that 91.4 percent of Lithuanians living in urban areas thought immediate reform would be necessary in order to keep the institution from going bankrupt.

 

Just over one-fifth of those polled, 21.8 percent, said they don‘t trust either the state-run SODRA or the private pension funds and are saving up for their old age on their own, BNS reported.

Only 0.8 percent of respondents said they place full confidence in SODRA.