Inflation “ate up” the pension increases, with the result that, in their pockets, pensioners received a cumulative increase that did not exceed 0.8%. At the same time, even the population of pensioners in Greece... is aging, while the gap between public sector pensions and those of the private sector remains open.
Thus, the real challenge for insurance policy does not concern the level of pensions, but the preservation of real purchasing power and ensuring adequate income for an ever-growing number of elderly people.
In detail, the data from the special analysis by Cepal Hellas and IOBE on pensions reflect an extremely small improvement in pensioners' earnings, much smaller than that shown by nominal earnings. And at the same time, they record the aging of the pensioner population at a faster pace, creating new challenges both for income adequacy and for our social security system.
According to HDIKA data, the average old-age pension increased in real terms by only 0.8% in the period 2019-2025. This development falls significantly short of the real increase in the minimum wage, which exceeded 30%, while it is marginally better than the course of the average wage in the private sector, which declined slightly in real terms during the same period.
This picture confirms that the increases granted to pensioners in recent years contributed mainly to maintaining their purchasing power and not to a substantial improvement in their standard of living.
The period of high inflation significantly limited the real benefit of the increases, with the result that the disposable income of most remained essentially stagnant. It is indicative that the largest group of pensioners today receives a main pension of between 1,000 and 1,500 euros per month.
At the same time, the researchers record the intense demographic aging of the pensioner population, with the majority group being those aged 71 to 75, while the percentage of pensioners over the age of 65 increased to 86% in 2025 from 81% in 2019. By contrast, the number of pensioners aged 51 to 65 is gradually decreasing, a development linked to the increase in retirement age limits and the restriction of early exits from the labor market.
Also of interest is the comparison of pensions between the public and private sectors, with public pensions maintaining a significant lead. In nominal terms, the average main pension in the Public sector increased from 1,162 euros in 2019 to 1,235 euros in 2025, recording an increase of 6.3%.
In the private sector, the corresponding average pension increased from 730 euros to 884 euros, recording a rise of 21%. Adjusting the increases for inflation, it is shown that real public sector pensions decreased by about 11% over the six-year period, while private sector pensions showed a marginal real increase of around 1.3%.
This development resulted in the distance between the two categories of pensioners being reduced. While in 2019 the average public sector pension was 59% higher than that of the private sector, the corresponding advantage was reduced to 40% in 2025.