The government of Venezuela announced a bonus equivalent to more than $2,200 for some 120,000 retired public employees starting in 2018, at the peak of a economic crisis that destroyed the wages and labor benefits of the local population.
This bonus of 10,000 bolivars (2,224 dollars, at the current exchange rate) applies to “all those people in the public sector who retired between January 1, 2018 and May 1, 2022,” announced the vice president Delcy Rodriguez in a statement broadcast on state television. “We know that they retired with precarious amounts,” she admitted.
“Until now the universe covered is 120,000 workers,” he specified.
The Venezuelan president, the socialist Nicholas Maduroset the minimum wage at $28 a month in March, after it had dropped to less than two dollars due to the effects of hyperinflation, the depreciation of the local currency and eight consecutive years of recession before rebounding 4% in 2021, from agreement with the government.
Only the food basket, in contrast, amounts to about 450 dollars per month in this Caribbean country, according to figures from private sector entities.
Maduro alleges that the crisis is due to the sanctions imposed by the United States that seek to displace him from power, but the opposition recalls that it broke out long before the financial restrictions imposed by Washington, including a ban on US citizens and companies from negotiating with the oil industry. Venezuelan, valid since 2019.
The socialist president had announced on Sunday the exit of the bonus on Sunday, without giving details, in the middle of an official march for the International Workers’ Day.
Rodríguez reported that this bonus will be paid in three “tranches” over 12 months until May 1, 2023.
Beneficiaries must process the bonus in the human resources office of the institution in which they retired.
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