Colombia’s lower house agrees to change pension rules again

For the second time, Colombia’s lower house passed on Saturday a pension reform backed by leftist President Gustavo Petro. This came after the constitutional court ordered a new vote because of problems with the first one.

The court’s ruling in June did not say whether the bill was constitutional or not, but it did say that the lower house had to vote again on the version that was approved by the Senate because there had not been enough debate before the earlier vote in June 2024.

One politician voted against the bill on Saturday, but 97 lawmakers voted in favor of it. Although the law was meant to go into effect in July, the court said it won’t until it’s approved.

To boost the state pension fund Colpensiones, the bill requires people who make less than $800 a month to save with the fund. The program makes sure that people who don’t have enough or any savings for retirement can get their payments.

The law that lowers the number of weeks that women with children must work to be qualified for pensions won’t affect people who have already worked enough weeks to be closing in on retirement.

In Colombia, the age of retirement is still 62 for men and 57 for women.

Government thinks that the payments to people who don’t have or enough pension savings will help about 2.6 million older adults.

While Congress has been against Petro’s ambitious economic and social reforms, they did support a similar labor reform in June, which was similar to a plan backed by Petro’s government that was turned down at first.