In the Philippines, the Social Security System (SSS) provides financial aid to elderly citizens on the basis of their contributions, years of service, and salary credit. Under the maximum pension that can be enjoyed until the year 2025 (₱20,300), a recipient can receive such an amount that the account has contributed at the highest salary credit at all-time rates on the scale of years.
It follows that in order to get your pension increased, you must pay until you finally acquire the maximum, continue contributing without breaks in service to ensure steep rates of pension, and go beyond any boundaries, regardless of presents and all sorts of obscuration, in order to reach the contribution period.
How the SSS Pension is Calculated
The SSS computes the pension using all three formulas, taking the one that provides the highest value. The first one involves a Pension Formula that adds a constant P300, 20% of the member’s Average Monthly Salary Credit (AMSC), and an additional two percent for every year of membership beyond ten.
On top of this, 40% of the AMSC is calculated in the second formula, while the third bases computation on, at a minimum, ₱1,200 for 10-20 year Contributors and in excess of 20 years, the value goes up to ₱2,400.
Ways to Maximize Your SSS Pension
The easy way to hike up your pension is to reach a maximum pensionable limit of contributions at the rate of ₱30,000 and pay the maximum monthly contribution of about ₱4,500. Higher payments will enhance the benefits for the retiree.
Stay diligently keeping an eye on the number of years in service you have against the payments. While 10 years will serve as the minimum for pension qualification, a longer contribution history can only amount to a correspondingly larger amount. People that are able to wait for five more years to retire at the age of 65 are likely to increase pegged computations by at least 2%.
One very important thing that you must not disregard to do is keep making those contributions always and consistently. Any gap in contributions might ultimately be the kiss of death to your much-diminished pension.
SSS will listen quite sympathetically, though, to anybody who wants to redress past breaches if and when you miss your contributions due to reasons such as overseas employment. It would still be wise from the end of an overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) to further contribute to the SSS Flexi-Fund.
Will There Be an SSS Pension Increase in 2025?
The last increase occurred when the maximum MSC was fixed at ₱30,000 and the contribution rate rose to 14%. Although no revelations have been officially made for 2025 pension raises, the prospect still holds for retirees’ pension to get more increased from the rise in contribution rate later.
Final Thoughts
The best way to build a good SSS pension is to give the utmost possible pay beyond ten years of service before retiring, never let your contribution payment lapse, extend it after twenty years, and postpone your retirement as long as you can contemplate. Such a well-thought and disciplined contribution strategy will put retirement in good stead and contribute more towards those happiest days.