After almost 29 years in a government job, Karima Abdel Hamid, a pseudonym, reached retirement age seven months ago. She entered a different financial reality: her monthly income fell from EGP 7,700 to a pension of no more than EGP 3,100, while the cost of everyday life remained high.
Speaking to Zawia3, Karima says that adding her husband's EGP 1,700 pension brings the household's total monthly income to EGP 4,800. That amount is supposed to cover the needs of four people. With prices continuing to rise, she says, it does not stretch far enough to meet their expenses.
Health costs place an additional burden on the couple. Karima has diabetes and used to spend hundreds of pounds each month on the medicine her doctor prescribed. She eventually turned to alternatives supplied through health insurance, although she describes them as less effective for her. Her husband also needs regular medication for a neurological condition, adding another recurring expense to the household budget.
Egypt's pension system includes people whose employment in the government, public or private sector has ended and who qualify for an insurance pension, alongside other categories defined by law. It is not restricted to retirement: it also covers disability and death benefits and eligible survivors of insured people.
Under Social Insurance and Pensions Law No. 148 of 2019, a pension is periodic income payable to an insured person or their eligible survivors when the legal conditions for entitlement are met, including old age, disability or death. It replaces employment income within the social protection system the state is required to provide.
The system covers several groups, including wage earners, business owners and equivalent categories such as self-employed workers, professionals and craftspeople. Their coverage and eligibility depend on the contribution requirements and other rules governing each category.
Pensions that cannot keep up with living costs
Karima's financial circumstances resemble those of Saleh Abdel Mawla, who retired after 36 years working in the real estate tax sector. His initial pension was no more than EGP 1,700. Over almost six years of retirement it gradually rose to around EGP 4,450. He says his most recent increase, in July 2025, did not exceed EGP 400.
Abdel Mawla says his current income cannot meet even his basic needs, despite the annual increases. Rising prices continue to intensify the pressure. Medication for his and his wife's chronic illnesses costs EGP 1,700 a month, approximately 38.2% of his pension, before they pay for anything else. “Why are pensions not raised to match the minimum wage?” he asks.
Article 35 of Social Insurance and Pensions Law No. 148 of 2019 provides for pensions payable on 30 June to rise from 1 July each year in line with inflation, subject to a ceiling of 15% and the law's other conditions. The mechanism is intended to help pensioners meet rising living costs.
Pensions increased by 15% in July 2025 as part of a social support package that also raised the minimum wage for state employees from EGP 6,000 to EGP 7,000. Abdel Mawla's EGP 400 figure is his account of the increase he actually received. It does not mathematically correspond to applying 15% to the difference between his current pension and that increase; the report did not have a detailed pension statement with which to resolve the discrepancy. July remains the usual date for the next annual increase, but its value had not been established in this report when it was prepared in March 2026.
While the minimum wage for state employees reached EGP 7,000 a month in 2025, the National Organization for Social Insurance announced a minimum pension of EGP 1,755 for people whose service ends from January 2026. This does not automatically raise every existing pension to that amount, nor are the minimum wage and pension calculated on the same basis. Pensioners interviewed by Zawia3 say the increases are insufficient as prices rise, purchasing power falls, and essential goods and fuel become more expensive.
On 10 March 2026, amid the military escalation involving the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other, Egypt announced its third fuel price increase within a year, following increases in April and October 2025. The government justified the move as an attempt to narrow the gap between domestic and international prices.
The price series shows an upward trajectory for different grades of petrol and diesel, alongside changes affecting vehicle gas, domestic LPG and other petroleum products. The following chart presents ten selected observations from April 2021 to March 2026. It is not a complete record of pricing decisions or a count of ten consecutive increases since 2019. Some products remained unchanged between particular dates while others rose, so each series should be read separately.
The official price of a 12.5 kg domestic LPG cylinder also increased 11 times during the past decade. In November 2016 it rose from EGP 8 to EGP 15, then doubled to EGP 30 in June 2017. Subsequent increases brought the price to EGP 275 in March 2026.
Linking pensions to the minimum wage
Alongside fuel, the prices of essential goods, including meat, poultry and vegetables, have risen over time. Red meat increased from around EGP 65 per kilogram in 2012 to more than EGP 400 in 2025, according to the accompanying series attributed by the report's author to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, CAPMAS. White poultry rose from EGP 18 per kilogram in December 2012 to EGP 28.5 in December 2016. Further increases followed as feed, transport and production costs rose. Prices eased somewhat toward the end of 2025 as the exchange rate became relatively more stable, before rising again in the first quarter of 2026, when fuel prices also increased. CAPMAS reported that the meat and poultry category rose 9% in February compared with January, while its year-on-year increase was 1.5%. These are different comparison periods and should not be confused.
Food and beverage prices increased 3.9% in February compared with the same month a year earlier. The increases included a 0.6% rise in cereals and bread. Separately from the monthly or annual inflation rate, the following chart shows the development of fava bean and lentil prices between 2010 and 2025.
Other year-on-year increases included meat and poultry at 1.5%, fish and seafood at 6.4%, oils and fats at 2.3%, fruit at 2.5%, coffee, tea and cocoa at 8.8%, and mineral water, soft drinks and natural juices at 7.5%. Milk, cheese and eggs registered a small decline of 0.2%. To provide additional context on food consumption, the next chart shows average annual consumption per person of selected vegetables between 2015 and 2023, measured in kilograms. It does not show vegetable prices or their inflation rate. These figures alone cannot establish a single cause for changes in consumption.
Medicines have also become more expensive. In a 2025 press interview, Ali Auf, head of the pharmaceuticals division at the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, estimated that around 2,500 products had been repriced in mid-2024, with increases of 30% to 40%, following the exchange-rate change that March. This is his estimate of a repricing wave, rather than a single decision affecting all medicines on one day. The dollar rose from around EGP 30 to around EGP 50, an increase of approximately two-thirds in its pound price. That is not the same percentage as the fall in the pound's value.
On 11 March 2026, MP Ahmed Essam submitted a parliamentary briefing request addressed to the speaker of parliament and the health and finance ministers over the failure to update state-funded treatment protocols to reflect these increases. He argued that continuing to use the existing protocols places patients who cannot afford treatment in a difficult position. He called for updated arrangements covering medicines and operations, reduced financial burdens, and coordination between the relevant authorities to ensure continuity of care.
Mona Ezzat, a researcher in economic and social affairs and chair of the board of trustees of the Noun Foundation for the Family, argues that pensioners' circumstances require an urgent and comprehensive review. Linking pensions to the minimum wage, she says, is a necessary step toward greater social justice.
Ezzat tells Zawia3 that the pension system reflects substantial differences between sectors. Government employees enjoy greater stability because of minimum-wage implementation and additional benefits. Private-sector workers come next, provided their contributions are paid regularly. Informal workers remain the most vulnerable, she says, because of historically limited insurance coverage and low participation in the current system.
Current pensions no longer cover basic needs, Ezzat argues. She describes an “inverse relationship” between household income and spending after retirement: income falls while obligations rise. Housing costs, persistent inflation and healthcare expenses increase the pressure, while education costs can continue as children marry later and remain dependent on the household for longer.
For informal workers, Ezzat says the response still relies on temporary assistance rather than sustainable social protection, despite legal provisions that allow them to join the insurance system. She attributes weak participation to irregular earnings, limited awareness of insurance, and the need to prioritize immediate expenses over long-term saving.
Addressing the crisis, she argues, requires moving from temporary measures to structural reform. That includes improving working conditions, extending social protection, and providing comprehensive insurance that covers healthcare, disability compensation and survivors' pensions. Such a system could strengthen public confidence and make a dignified life after retirement more attainable.
MP Freddy Bayady of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party says the declining real value of pensions is no longer simply an economic challenge. In his view, it represents a clear failure to meet constitutional obligations.
Speaking to Zawia3, Bayady points to Article 17 of the Egyptian Constitution, which obliges the state to provide social insurance services and guarantee pensioners a dignified life. He argues that the continuous erosion of purchasing power prevents this obligation from being fulfilled. “Pensioners must not be made to bear the cost of economic crises,” he says. They have fulfilled their responsibilities to the state, he adds, and should not become the group least able to meet its basic needs.
Bayady argues that the minimum pension should be no lower than the minimum wage and should at least match it. Pensioners face growing healthcare and living costs without the same opportunities to increase their income, he says.
He also criticizes the continuing delay in issuing the executive regulations for the Older Persons' Rights Law, No. 19 of 2024, despite its passage and ratification. He considers the delay a denial of enforceable rights to millions of people. He calls for an immediate exceptional pension increase reflecting inflation, a permanent mechanism linking pensions to price indicators, prompt issuance of the law's regulations, and implementation of its benefits. He also advocates restructuring the pension system to ensure a fair minimum no lower than the minimum wage and directing social protection more effectively toward low-income pensioners.
Bayady concludes that pensions are “an inherent constitutional right, not a grant.” In his view, allowing current conditions to persist amounts to a failure to fulfil the state's duty toward a group entitled to care and protection.
A legislative gap and a demand for fairness
Egypt has approximately 11.5 million pensioners and eligible survivors. This figure includes both groups, rather than only people who have retired themselves. On 30 November 2025, the National Organization for Social Insurance announced higher contribution-wage limits effective from 1 January 2026. As a result, the minimum pension for people whose service ends from that date rose from EGP 1,495 to EGP 1,755, and the maximum rose from EGP 11,600 to EGP 13,360. These limits are tied to contribution and pension-calculation rules; they are not a uniform increase for all existing beneficiaries.
Despite changes to the limits and increases in payments, disagreements continue over funding adequacy and the management of social insurance assets. The system's resources include contributions, investment returns and legally prescribed Treasury transfers. Pensioners' representatives criticize the investment of fund assets in government debt instruments and the settlement of liabilities over long periods, arguing that this affects their real value. The National Organization for Social Insurance, for its part, says the Treasury is meeting the required instalments.
Huwaida El Sayed Awad, head of the Egyptian Telecom pensioners' union, believes her own experience demonstrates the system's problems. She worked for approximately 37 years, became a human resources department manager and paid contributions at the maximum level.
Awad tells Zawia3 she was surprised to receive an initial pension of no more than EGP 3,000 despite her former position. She considers the amount unrepresentative of the contributions paid throughout her working life. Even the newly announced minimum of EGP 1,755 for new pensions, she says, is insufficient to meet basic living needs.
She raises the question of social insurance funds, describing them as “money owned by pensioners,” and criticizes what she considers low returns compared with market interest rates. Spreading repayments over long periods, she argues, reduces their real value. She describes pensioners' circumstances as “harsh”: some cannot afford treatment or surgery, forcing them into difficult choices directly affecting their lives. Investment returns must, however, be distinguished from the annual escalation of the Treasury instalment. According to the organization's clarification published in 2025, the latter was 6% a year; it was not a uniform return on every investment held by the fund.
Awad adds that the challenges extend beyond income to social changes, including later marriage. Many employees reach retirement while their children are still in education, increasing their financial obligations just as their earnings fall.
Law No. 148 of 2019 established an annual-instalment mechanism to settle obligations between the Treasury and the National Organization for Social Insurance, addressing liabilities accumulated over many years. Aspects of the dispute go back to administrative arrangements adopted in 2005, when responsibility for social insurance was transferred to the Ministry of Finance under Youssef Boutros Ghali. Those arrangements and the subsequent use of fund assets to finance the Treasury generated prolonged controversy. The administrative transfer did not, in itself, mean social insurance funds legally lost their separate ownership or became ordinary state revenue.
In earlier press statements, pensioners' trade union leader Saeed El Sabbagh estimated government liabilities to the pension funds at around EGP 642 billion over the period from 2006 to 2018, linking them to repeated borrowing to finance budget deficits. In historical statements made before his death in 2021, former pensioners' federation leader El Badry Farghaly described what had happened as an assault on pensioners and their money, and said they faced systematic deprivation.
The settlement arrangements in Law No. 148 of 2019 provide for the government to meet its obligations to the insurance organization through annual instalments over a period of up to 50 years. The mechanism is intended to restore the funds' resources gradually and support the pension system's financial sustainability.
For the specialists and pensioners interviewed, falling income after retirement cannot be separated from rising living costs, more expensive fuel and essential goods, and growing healthcare bills. They regard linking pensions to price indicators as an urgent requirement for social justice and a dignified life. They also argue that structural reform, together with implementation of the relevant legislation, offers more durable protection than temporary measures that can no longer match the scale of economic and household pressures.
