The Dominican Republic's Pensions Superintendency published an account of Superintendent Francisco A. Torres' television interview on the pension system and proposed changes to Law 87-01. Torres clarified that proposals under evaluation would preserve the retirement age for existing participants. Any gradual increase to age 65 would apply only to new labor-market entrants, described as people currently younger than 15. Other options include temporarily reducing the guaranteed pension requirement from 25 to 15 years of contributions, restructuring the Solidarity Fund to support that change and gradually raising the combined employee-employer contribution rate from 9.97%. Torres identified informality and low contribution density as key constraints, with contributions made for only 50 of every 100 months in which affiliates are expected to contribute. The Superintendency is designing voluntary, flexible supplementary pension plans for self-employed and independent workers who cannot contribute through an employer. He also called for stronger supervision and data matching to address salary underreporting, while noting that process changes have reduced disability benefit decisions from as long as six months to less than one month.

Original source Back to tracker