Social security funds crumbling
Social security funds are near breaking point, as caretaker Labor and Social Security Minister Antonis Roupakiotis said on Wednesday that he was not able to tell whether the funds would be able to pay their dues this summer.
?For July I expressed the prediction that based on the data we have… pensioners should be worried,? said Roupakiotis, a former head of the Athens Law Association. ?However the finances of all social security funds and especially those subsidized by the state budget are in a bad state.?
He went on to say that the Manpower Organization (OAED) needs 260 million euros to pay unemployment benefits. He also dubbed the unemployment benefit ?humiliating? and stressed that only one in five jobless people receives it.
Finally, Roupakiotis pointed out that some 500 employees at unions have remained without a salary for months and that social tourism programs, which provide subsidized holidays to workers, have been suspended.
