The company with the most workers on the payroll with high salaries is the public sector, according to INE data. This places the State as the employer that should contribute the most to the cap on contributions and the "solidarity quota" launched to pay pensions.

The promoter of Sumar and second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, gave her yes to the pension reform of José Luis Escrivá, stressing that higher salaries contribute more to pay the bill. "With the measures that

We have deployed, both with the solidarity quota and with the cap on maximum pensions, we are going to

Irrogate

a very important amount of income to the system," he said on the 10th in Cadiz.

He probably meant "irrigate" which, according to the Royal Academy, means "watering or spreading water on the earth or on a plant to benefit it." However, he said "irrogar" which means "to cause harm or damage."

Anyone has a lapse and it is very excusable in Díaz, because not only is his interventions usually prepared thoroughly, but also because, in addition,

Irrogate

is more accurate in this case than it seems, according to the analysis of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) and the governor of the Bank of Spain,

Pablo Hernández de Cos

. Both have recently declared themselves convinced that both the cap that raises contributions to companies and workers for salaries above 54,000 euros, and the "solidarity quota" – surcharge for salaries especially above 70,000 – harm employment.

That in the private sector, but in the public sector has another effect that the long-suffering taxpayer must know. The largest

employer

which must pay for the highest salaries is the State. That is, of all those who employ in Spain, it will be the taxpayer who contributes the most in this new system of financing pensions.

No private company has so many workers with high salaries on the payroll, according to the latest salary data from the National Institute of Statistics consulted by this newspaper. They show that the salaries that are in the highest section of the country correspond to 40% to senior positions and employees of the different central and territorial administrations and also companies and public entities.

According to the INE that is the percentage in the last decile of its classification and somewhat higher if the last two deciles, the ninth and the tenth, are taken. This makes the State the employer to whom the new collection mechanism will have the most impact, both in the cap and in the so-called "solidarity quota", that of the "rich". In the latter, the company, in this case the State, will contribute the bulk of this extra contribution and a small part, the affected, as the system is designed in the so-called

Royal Decree-Law 2/2023, of 16 March, on urgent measures for the extension of pensioners' rights

. The rule foresees that the surcharge on the contribution will increase over time from 1% to a maximum of 6%. Of this last percentage, 5% must be put by the company and 1% by the worker. It is planned for, above all, current salaries exceeding 70,000 euros, so that the President of the Government, ministers, regional presidents, mayors, senior officials, directors of public companies, judges, prosecutors and a long etcetera of the public sector will enter fully from the first moment.

"The Government imposes on companies a solidarity quota for high salaries that, in the personal case of Escrivá or the minister,

Maria Jesus Montero

, the State would pay", criticize in the dome of CEOE. How much? Both the AIReF and the Ministry of Inclusion agree that only the "solidarity quota" is called to raise around one tenth of the annual Gross Domestic Product. That is, about 1,300 million currently. Even more so because of the so-called cap, which will contribute five tenths. It is not clear the exact percentage that the State will have to pay of that figure, because there are salaries in the private sector vastly higher than in the public, but it will be an important part, according to government sources. These also highlight that, therefore, it is not an adjustment as focused on the private sector as the president of the employers' association protests.

Antonio Garamendi

. Be that as it may, the effect of this chapter on the deficit will be neutral. What reaches one part of the State's accounts will come out of another.

The INE points out that the average salary in the Spanish public sector exceeds 2,800 euros while the private sector does not reach 2,000. "22.3% of workers in the private sector earned a salary of at least 2,342.2 euros in 2021, compared to 59.9% of public sector workers," according to the agency. "The greater concentration of high salaries in the public sector is determined by the higher percentage of employees with higher education, the type of occupation performed, the lower weight of part-time work and the greater seniority," says the INE.

To the solidarity quota and that of the maximum base cap itself is added the generalized one of the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism. "Thus, a salary income of 70,000 euros will have an increase in taxation of 7,500 euros gross per year, while if the salary reaches 100,000 euros the tax increase will be 9,700 euros," calculates the AIReF when applying all increases to those incomes. Public employees also pay taxes, but it is clear that the taxpayer in general will assume most of that effort in the salaries of the Administration.

Therefore, it is striking that both Yolanda Díaz and the economic coordinator of Podemos,

Nacho Alvarez

, have influenced the fact that those who have the most are quoted more, ignoring the effect for the State. And if the AIReF and the Bank of Spain are right that raising contributions in the country with the highest unemployment in the euro will harm employment, the measure is more of irrogation than irrigation for the pension system, because there will be fewer private wage earners and the taxpayer will have to make even more effort.

The State, to pay "solidarity fee" by ministers, among others

The salaries of the ministers are of the public positions that fall within which, according to the decree, they must contribute a "solidarity quota" to the pension system. In your case, the company is the State that must bear the bulk of the extra contribution. In the image three protagonists of the reform: Yolanda Díaz, María Jesús Montero and José Luis Escrivá.