– I have been a nurse for 25 years, and have worked for several years on hospital beds, I have worked in home nursing and in the rehabilitation department. There was a lot of heavy care and nursing. Eventually the back struck completely. Former nurse Lena Jansen Hoel is sitting on the terrace outside her house in Moss. She says that after two pregnancies she got major pelvic pain, and in the end her body did not want any more. – I went on sick leave for a long time, partly on sick leave, I went on work clearance money and in the end I became disabled, says Jansen Hoel. She says she will lose around 93,000 kroner In 10 years, Lena Jansen Hoel will retire. – What concerns me is that the pension reform means for us disabled people that we lose a lot of money. We do not receive full pension earnings from the age of 62 until we are 67 years old. Ordinary employees must now eventually work longer than the age of 67 to receive a full pension. We do not have the opportunity to do that either. Without the reform, I would have had a pension of NOK 271,000. Pension accrual and life expectancy adjustment means that I lose a total of around NOK 93,000 a year. Lena Jansen Hoel says that it stings a little extra when the pension reform is a Labor product. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani / NRK Jansen Hoel thinks it is unfair that money is taken from this group in society. – There are many with me who live on the minimum limit and the poverty line. Many are breadwinners. We have nothing to argue with, we can not be heard in any way. Other workers can strike or change employers, while we do not have that opportunity. A betrayal The pension reform came into force on 1 January 2011 under the Stoltenberg government. The reform will ensure a pension system that it is possible to pay for also in the future. Jansen Hoel was an AUF member in his youth, and has always been a loyal supporter of the Labor Party. – I think this is a betrayal. It is to go back to the struggles the Labor Party has taken for ordinary people, as they say. They go back to good schemes that they have helped to approve, says Jansen Hoel. She says she has to put aside several of the plans she has had for retirement. – With the income I get, I just have to be happy that I get paid bills. Among other things, I have to give up plans for travel, which I had planned to do when I retired. We also have to sell the house, we have to find a cheaper place to live. We might have done it anyway, but now I do not know if I will be able to get out of debt. Paying debt on top of the low pension we receive, it will sting, says Lena Jansen Hoel. Grossly unfair – It is grossly unfair that sick people are punished for not being able to work anymore, when everyone around them can potentially be able to do so. We believe that the disabled must receive full earnings until they are 67 years old. This is what the deputy head of Rødt, Marie Sneve Martinussen, says and continues: Deputy head of Rødt, Marie Sneve Martinussen. Photo: Christopher Isachsen Sandøy / NRK – In the future, it will not be enough to get a good enough pension, so in addition they must be shielded from life expectancy adjustment when you can no longer work, says Sneve Martinussen, who expects Rødt to join more parties when the pension reform will now be evaluated. Awaiting committee report State Secretary in the Ministry of Labor and Social Inclusion Stian Nyhus (Labor Party) says the government will look at solutions for the disabled’s old-age pension. – The most important measure that makes National Insurance sustainable for future generations is the life expectancy adjustment. This means that when you live longer, you have to work longer to maintain your current pension. Since the disabled can not stay in work for long, the government believes that there is a need for protection for the life expectancy adjustment in the disabled’s old-age pension, says Nyhus. In 2020, the Solberg government set up a public committee tasked with evaluating the pension reform. In June, the government will receive the report. – In the follow-up to the committee’s report, the government will find solutions that safeguard the disabled’s old-age pension with broad political support, so that they will survive over time and so that the disabled are also guaranteed good and predictable pensions, says the State Secretary.
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Fear she loses a third of her pension – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
