WHEN sociologists around the world write that a growing middle class guarantees stability and happiness in a society, they are, in fact, asking the governments to safeguard the middle class and strive to increase its size in society. For this reason, quite often security is disturbed and crime rates increase in societies where the middle class has dwindled. For the middle class to expand, its social status must be maintained and it should grow in direct proportion with the rise in prices, such that it is parallel to the inflation rate that devours earnings. It is difficult for the income of the members of this class to remain constant when the prices of everything around them rise continuously, pushing them mercilessly down to lower class, and even below the poverty line. Those who are most harmed are the ones whose income has remained constant while the price of every day goods around them skyrocket. In particular, I mean the retirees from government or private sector jobs, whether military or civilian. The matter has clearly worsened, as according to the Pensioners' Society report, the income of 70 percent of retirees is barely SR2,000 per month. Imagine trying to support a medium sized or even small family, or even the retiree themselves, on such an amount. No wonder a pensioner feels ashamed to enter a supermarket to purchase a month's supplies for his family when he has merely SR2,000 in his pocket. Apart from this, he has other commitments, including expenses for hospital, water, electricity, telephone and transport bills, as well as rent. As for housing, the report says that 44 percent of retirees do not own their own homes. In other words, these pensioners have reached old age but still have to pay rent for their residence. The Shoura Council committee assigned to study a proposal for amending retirement regulations recommended providing retirees with an annual allowance commensurate with the price hikes and rising cost of living. It also aims to restore this segment of the society to the status they were in before retirement by lifting these pensioners from the bottom of society back up into the middle class. This should be implemented, even if the retirement institutions have been suffering from mismanagement of funds for decades now. The state must intervene fast to reorganize the situation. What is coming is surely worse for two reasons: the number of retirees will only increase in coming years, and the average age of the population in general in different countries of the world will only increase. That is, a man can live, on an average, up to the age of 90 years, meaning that these institutions will have to continue to pay the monthly pensions for these people for about 30 years. Furthermore, good programs should be set up for these retirees. With their growing age, their need for healthcare increases and the value of their annual income decreases, yet government hospital services have worsened especially in giving appointments. Patients have to wait for long periods to see a doctor, and finding a bed in a hospital is extremely difficult. Hence, these retirees and their families face crises, which only Allah Almighty knows. It is necessary to work seriously to provide them with healthcare and pay them an annual allowance apart from their pensions. Before all else, the performance of retirement institutions ought to be improved and supported so that they do not slip into bankruptcy and see a very large segment of society collapse and face poverty.
