Pension dipping in Peru and Chile
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Millions of people in Peru and Chile have been allowed to empty their retirement pots to cope with Covid-19 and rising prices, putting the pension system and the economy at risk.
Chilean Senator Alejandra Sepulveda explains why she supported early pension withdrawals as a one-time emergency measure to reactivate the economy while the OECD’s expert on pensions Pablo Antolin explains the relevance of restricting this kind of initiatives to only those in need.
We also hear from pension-dippers Ana Alvarez, Antonio Aliaga, and Antonio Valladares on why they don’t trust the pension system in their countries and Peruvian business reporter Karina Montoya reflects on how free pension-dipping during the pandemic has completely changed the way people see retirement funds in her country.
All this money leaving retirement funds at the same time is having consequences in the economy, as the former finance minister of Peru, David Tuesta, and the current finance minister of Chile, Mario Marcel, tell us.
Presenter / producer: Stefania Gozzer Image: Pension jar; Credit: Getty
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A bomb whose creation would tit the scales of global power. |
| 0:05.2 | A nuclear physicist who sought to redress the balance. |
| 0:10.4 | The bomb, a podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:14.4 | Season 2, available now. |
| 0:19.2 | Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:21.6 | With me, Stefania Goetzer. |
| 0:24.9 | To save for the future or to survive now. |
| 0:28.0 | In Peru and Chile, millions of workers of all ages |
| 0:30.8 | have been facing this dilemma since the start of the pandemic. |
| 0:34.9 | We'll hear what they decided and why. |
| 0:37.2 | My father, he earns about $300 for his pension. |
| 0:42.8 | It is not much. We have to get the idea that you will continue working also when you retire. |
| 0:50.6 | And we'll talk to experts about the impact their decisions are having in the economy. |
| 0:55.6 | People is always very happy to access their money. In the case of Peru and Chile, it's very |
| 1:01.0 | difficult to see how their retirement will be financed in the future. What happens when lots of |
| 1:07.8 | people emptied their pension puts? Find out on this edition of Business Daily. |
| 1:13.6 | If you were given the option to keep saving money for your retirement or to use that money as you like now, what would you choose? |
| 1:22.4 | This is a question that many people in two South American countries had to answer in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic |
| 1:29.5 | shrank the region's economy by more than 6%. Peru was one of the first countries in Latin America |
| 1:36.4 | to impose a strict lockdown that left more than 1 million people unemployed. The government |
| 1:42.6 | quickly announced an ambitious plan to offer |
| 1:45.4 | $25 billion in subsidies. That's 12% of the GDP. They were meant for businesses and for the |
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