2023 marks six decades since the enactment of the first social security system in Cuba, Law 1 100 of 1963.

This legislation and those that followed, such as Law 1 165 (1964), Law 24 (1979) or Law 105, have unified benefits and rights of social security and assistance for workers, mothers and fathers, and people in a state of vulnerability.

Virginia Marlen García Reyes, general director of the National Institute of Social Security (Inass), stressed that the Cuban social security system was allocated in 2023 a budget of 45,896 million pesos, which includes protection for both the general regime and the special regime, which is contributory.

In an interview with Cubadebate, García Reyes analyzed the history of social security in Cuba after 1959, the recent implementation of legislation, and the projections and challenges of that system.

"At present, the panorama of predominance of state employment has changed in the face of the heterogeneity of forms of ownership and management resulting from the transformation process, known in our country as updating the economic and social model," he acknowledged.

With decree-laws 18 and 19, amending Law 105 (which increased the retirement age by five years), which came into force in 2020, the calculation of the pension of retired workers changed.

The general director of Inass explained that "a worker who requested his retirement in 2022, which we already have a large number of retired people from that year, was taken the average of the 12 months prior to the date of application. It benefits them because, by increasing the amount of the salary, this ensured that the amount of the pension was raised.

"If a worker asks for retirement in 2023, according to Decree Law 18, the average of 2021 and 2022 will be taken. That means that the pension is going to be raised a lot."

Utilities are included in this calculation.

"We," he declared, "take for the purposes of calculating the pension everything that the worker earns, including, in addition, the profits provided that they are included in the period to be taken into account, say 2021 and 2022 for those who are going to retire during 2023 ".

One of the main challenges of Inass and other Cuban institutions is the creation of policies and initiatives that address the aging population in the country, and the decline in the birth rate and replacement rate.

According to García Reyes, in this situation "we must adopt policies that guarantee job stability, and birth and fertility, to sustain the country's economy, because otherwise there will be no workforce to guarantee economic and social development."

Decree Law 56, On the Maternity of Workers and the Responsibility of Families, and Decree Law 71, which modifies it and grants new rights to figures recognized by the Family Code, are recent efforts to face the challenges of population aging.

"The implementation of the Family Code forced us to modify what was contained in Decree Law 56, among which is, for example, the solidarity womb. In that specific case, both people have rights in this new legislation, both the one who gestates and the one who rents that womb, to put it in some term that is understandable. She has to accompany that pregnant woman to medical consultations, and she has protection because she will also be paid her salary, the percentage that is established for that accompaniment, until that pregnancy reaches a happy term, "said the general director of Inass.

In addition to the changes in the retirement age and the calculation of pensions, García Reyes said that "special regimes were incorporated such as that of the FAR, Minint, the creators of plastic, musical, literary, audiovisual arts and artistic workers, members of agricultural and non-agricultural production cooperatives, land usufructuaries, self-employed workers, MSMEs"

Other legislation protects active athletes and sporting glories, holders of local development projects and commercial fishermen.

"A group of decree-laws has been implemented that protect the non-state sector, which also enters the state budget from contributions," he said.

Decree Law 48 guarantees that the member of the MSME, the cooperative, or a self-employed worker, can select from a scale ranging from 2,000 to 9,500 pesos what his contribution base is, thus fixing what the pension will be in the future. The contribution base can be modified in the last quarter of the year.

The general director of Inass pointed out that through social assistance, vulnerable people have been guaranteed free modules of food, construction materials or household appliances.

It also "enhances the training of social workers to ensure that the universe of care in the population is covered. There is a program, an event was held recently, the first meeting of social workers in Cuba, where work guidelines were set. A career aimed at this social work training is even planned to be able to guarantee this approach to the population in a state of need," he said.

García Reyes explained that nowadays social security benefits are approved expeditiously in the territories: "Before it was carried out at the national level and that function was decentralized to the municipalities. This process was streamlined and a much faster response is given to the claims of this population that is in a situation of vulnerability."

On the issue of the low amount of pensions for the elderly, he said: "The economic situation of the country is delicate, and with a minimum pension of 1,528 pesos by age or total disability we know that it is not enough.

"That situation does not allow for a massive increase, until this minute. Which does not imply that measures have not been planned that are waiting for the country's economy to allow it in order to give a greater benefit to that population."

However, he noted that social assistance has provided protection to older adults who lack family members who can help them.

Inass works together with Xetid in the implementation of the Computer System for Human Resources Management, which will include the digital labor file.

This initiative "will eliminate the labor record on paper, which today constitutes a gap for social security, because documents proving time of service and salary are falsified, and fraud and violations are committed in that way," according to García Reyes.

The general director of Inass said that, with the approval of Decree 69, functions of the Institute are transferred to the subsidiaries in the territories and local governments.

"That does not mean that at the national level the management of the territories is ignored, but there will be a social security directorate that will lead from the methodological point of view the work in each of the territories, but the responsibility in the immediate future, which will be in 2024, will fall on local governments, " Said.