{"id":82709,"date":"2026-02-07T07:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/two-more-budget-2026-measures-take-effect-benefiting-56000-elderly\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T06:33:00","slug":"two-more-budget-2026-measures-take-effect-benefiting-56000-elderly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/two-more-budget-2026-measures-take-effect-benefiting-56000-elderly\/","title":{"rendered":"Two more Budget 2026 measures take effect, benefiting 56,000 elderly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two more Budget 2026 measures take effect, benefiting 56,000 elderly<\/p>\n<p>Around 56,000 elderly beneficiaries are receiving more than &euro;31 million this week following improvements to two social benefits introduced in Budget 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The annual grant for persons aged 75 and over has increased by &euro;75, reaching &euro;425 for those aged 75-79 and &euro;525 for those aged 80+. Some 42,892 people are benefiting, with payments totalling &euro;20.4 million.<\/p>\n<p>A separate annual bonus for individuals who do not qualify for a contributory pension has also risen by &euro;50 across all nine rates, now ranging from &euro;600 to &euro;1,050. About 13,119 people are receiving &euro;10.7 million under this scheme.<\/p>\n<p>Social Policy Minister Michael Falzon said the measures form part of a broader package aimed at steadily improving pensions and elderly benefits.<\/p>\n<p>\nRSS Feed Source: Independent Malta <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.com.mt\/articles\/2026-02-07\/local-news\/Two-more-Budget-2026-measures-take-effect-benefiting-56-000-elderly-6736287052\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Two more Budget 2026 measures take effect, benefiting 56,000 elderly<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two more Budget 2026 measures take effect, benefiting 56,000 elderly Around 56,000 elderly beneficiaries are receiving more than &euro;31 million this week following improvements to two social benefits introduced in Budget 2026. The annual grant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2139],"tags":[1850],"class_list":["post-82709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malta-news","tag-abatement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shopsofmalta.com\/malta\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}