Cuba boosts retirement age as many go gray

Cuba boosts retirement age as many go gray
"HAVANA - Like much of Cuba's work force, Alfredo Congas is going gray. The chain-smoking 61-year-old retired last March after 42 years as a hotel doorman and rum company driver. Now he's working 12-hour shifts as a security guard to supplement his pension.

Congas' new job brings his total income - pension plus paycheck - to the equivalent of $23.45 a month, about $4 more than the average state wage.

Poverty forces most of Cuba's 2.2 million retirees to get jobs to supplement their pensions. Many scrape by, selling peanuts and newspapers or guarding cars for tourist change.

Now, even that is harder to do. Faced with an aging population and a life expectancy of 77.3 years, nearly the same as in the United States, Cuba has raised the retirement threshold by five years, to 60 for women and 65 for men, delaying the second jobs many have counted on to make ends meet.


About 90 percent of Cubans have government jobs, and both sexes must now work at least 30 years, not 25, to get a full pension."