Measures to ensure that the pension of people currently entering retirement are not affected by the Covid-19 pandemic were announced on Tuesday.

Social Justice Minister Michael Falzon and Finance Minister Clyde Caruana launched a new measure which effects people born between 1956 and 1961.

The pandemic has led to a decrease in income in some sectors, and this could negatively affect the pensions of people entering retirement, they explained. Through this scheme, “it is as though the pandemic never happened”, Falzon said.

The computation of peoples’ pension for the year of 2020 will be calculated as follows: only the income for the first two months of 2020 will be taken into consideration. Once the monthly average is calculated from January and February of 2020, it will be annualized.

Falzon also said that the same will apply for people who are self-employed. This measure is estimated to effect around 2,000 to 2,500 people.

Minister Clyde Caruana said that this measure will not only effect people retiring now but, rather, the measure can be helpful for the next 20 years. Caruana confirmed that the scheme will have to be modified for people retiring in the future but without this measure, “a lot of pensioners will be put in a difficult financial situation”, he said.

The ministers said the government has no legal obligation to introduce such a scheme, but morality dictates that this is the right course of action.