The young man who says he won't pay his boss's pension

The young man who has no intention of paying his boss's pension

A worker in his twenties with a degree and a master's has written on a forum that he has no intention of paying the pensions of a generation that, he claims, pays him less than €1,000 a month. His boss, in his fifties, earns €4,000. The gap between them is not just salary: it's about expectations, job security, and the future. The text, written with the anger of someone who knows he's at the weak end of the chain, has peine a rift that keeps growing. The discussion, according to a 2025 comment, is still open more than a decade later.

The calculation behind the complaint

The central argument is arithmetic. The author calculates that with three workers for every retiree and a 20% contribution for pensions, each worker contributes about €800. Multiplied by three, that gives €2,400 for an average pension. With that scheme, he argues, the previous generation enjoys a comfortable old age while his boss has €3,200 left for cars, dinners, and five-star restaurants.

The problem arises when that same calculation is projected forward. If the young man earns €1,000, there is no margin to sustain the pension of someone who today earns €4,000. The pyramid narrows at the base: fewer contributors, lower wages, more precarious contracts. The conclusion he draws is uncomfortable: the system is not capitalization but pure pay-as-you-go, and those who enter late pay for the party of those who entered early. The author calls it, without nuance, a pyramid scheme organized by the State.

Who really pays the pensions

From the other side, the response is that current pensions are not a gift: they are the result of 35 or 40 years of contributions, of strikes that won rights, and of taxes paid when it was time. A 63-year-old participant recounts that she started working at 12, without school, without clothes, and that she gained languages and world experience through sheer effort. Her pension, she says, she paid for herself.

Another line of analysis points out that many pensioners are not swimming in abundance. Some argue that many pensions barely reach €1,000 and that the portrait of the elderly person with a Cayenne is a caricature used to pit the lower classes against each other. Others add that the real enemy is not the pensioner: it's the system that has made both precarious. One participant says that last month he paid €3,600 in taxes, almost four times the monthly salary of the young man who protests.

The gap between generations

The original text describes a labor world split in two. On one side, bulletproof contracts that make dismissal unfeasible, high salaries, and a life of restaurants. On the other, temporary contracts, wages below €1,000, shared flats, and buses. The author speaks of 50% youth unemployment and interns earning €300 for ten hours a day.

The response from the opposite side is no less harsh. Young people are reproached for wanting everything for free, for not wanting to take on a mortgage, for not enduring. The mutual criticism hides a fact that the author defends: Spanish youth today are more educated than the generation that preceded them and earn less. According to the OECD, cited in the initial message, those over 50 are undereducated. That paradox is the heart of the matter.

The Austrian system and other alternatives

When the discussion exhausts diagnosis, proposals appear. Some call for pogre implementing the so-called Austrian system. Others point to cutting public spending before pensions: merging municipalities, eliminating provincial councils, reducing the number of autonomous communities, making those convicted of corruption answer with their assets.

The scenario taking shape

Over the years, the tone of the matter has changed. What began as an individual complaint has become a commonplace: some claim their generation won't receive a pension, that Spain will go bankrupt first, that the system won't last another fifteen years. Some speak of successive freezes, of extending the retirement age, of future pensions being little more than a tip.

In 2025, a comment sums up the passage of time bitterly: those who were young in 2010 still don't have a flat and are still paying pensions. Fifteen years later, the complaint hasn't aged: it has matured.