According to data in the midterm fiscal plan recently passed by the Greek government, in four years the average pension in Greece will be just €620 (AUD $923.27) a month, and the average supplementary pension no more than €144.

In a letter addressed to the Financial Times entitled ‘Greece’s pensioners already have barely enough to live on’ earlier this year, the Minister of Labour, Social Security and Social Solidarity Effie Achtsioglou revealed that per capita income for individuals aged over 65, Greek elderly citizens are worse off than elsewhere in Europe, earning about €9,000 in comparison to €20,000 in the eurozone.

In 2017, 43 per cent of pensioners already receive less than €660 a month – a sum that has been placing unprecedented pressures on individuals and families, and now the new projected figures show little hope on the horizon.

The government has pledged creditors that it will curb pension expenditure by €3.1 billion by 2021, however a study led by Professor Savvas Robolis has highlighted that it will actually be reduced by a further €2.6 billion, cutting pensions by a total of €5.7 billion.

While the midterm fiscal plan puts pension spending in 2021 at €27.1 billion, the study writers argue that analysis of the number of pensioner deaths and the rate of new retirees, means that pension spending would have to come up to at least €32.8 billion.