Restricting the vote to those who pay in: the pensions battle

Vote only if you pay in: the new generational crusade

There is an idea doing the rounds with a smirk behind it, but it contains a real proposal: restricting the right to vote to those who have a positive balance with Spain's Social Security system over the last three years. In practice, that would strip most pensioners, the unemployed and a good chunk of civil servants of their vote. The paradox is immediate: the system they funded for decades would turn against them just when they depend on it most.

The argument propping up this notion is the classic one of those who feel robbed: the State takes between 30% and 50% of the payslip of a young worker earning 1,700 euros net, between taxes and social security contributions, while a 75-year-old pensioner receives 1,200 euros net without lifting a finger. With that gap, the young worker cannot make ends meet, let alone buy a home. From there it is a short step to concluding that the older voter backs the party that pays his pension out of the younger generation's pocket.

Democracy versus the fiscal grip

Against that current stand those who remind everyone that democracy is not negotiated over a payslip. If only those who pay in positively can vote, the vote becomes a privilege of the wealthiest, and older people, who already paid their share, are silenced precisely when they most need the system to respond. Universal suffrage, they add, is the shield of the weak, not a reward for productivity.

The conversation, which began in the tone of a bar-room squabble, has ended in farce: the elderly are accused of being illiterate and selfish, and the retort is that young people have been given everything and failed to make the most of it. In between, someone brings up a 79-year-old neighbour who thinks exactly like the person who proposed the measure, and another quips that the pension has gone up by 60 euros and that should settle everything.

The skeleton of the problem

Beneath the noise, this is a question of arithmetic. A pay-as-you-go system with fewer and fewer contributors per pensioner cannot be sustained unless hard decisions are taken. The question is not whether pensioners should vote, but whether the institutional design is ready for generations to lean on each other rather than trample each other. Meanwhile, someone will have to pick up the bill. And judging by the row, the invitation will not be a cordial one.

Will the restriction of the vote ever be seriously tabled? Today it is a boutade, but the echo it finds is the real barometer of discontent. When an idea like this gains traction, it is not the idea that is worrying, but the discontent that makes it plausible.