(Quebec) The approximately 2.2 million beneficiaries of the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) will see their pensions increase by 6.5% in 2023, Retraite Quebec announced on Friday.
QPP pensions are indexed each January to take into account variations in Statistics Canada’s consumer price index (CPI), thus protecting its beneficiaries from inflation. The QPP indexing calculation takes into account the annual variation in the average Canadian CPI for the period from November to October.
The current household expenditure basket studied by Statistics Canada to establish its CPI looks in particular at the prices of the food, housing, clothing, transportation and health care sectors, to compare them to a year reference.
According to this index, a purchase of $100 in goods and services from the 2002 reference basket was worth $153.80 in October 2022, which represented a growth of 53.8% over 20 years.
As a result of the high inflation that has been raging in the country for several months in most consumer sectors, the 2023 increase imposed on pensions is particularly high compared to those of the last five years, which ranged between 1.0% and 2.0% .7%.
The persons affected by the increase in pensions are the beneficiaries of pensions for retirement, surviving spouse, invalidity, disabled contributor’s child and orphan. These pensions are available to people who have contributed enough to the QPP or to their relatives.