VIENNA, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Austrian government announced Wednesday that it would raise pensions by 9.7 percent next year due to high inflation in the country.
The package, worth a total of 5.3 billion euros (5.7 billion U.S. dollars), will cover 2.2 million pensioners in the central European country, said Austria's social affairs minister Johannes Rauch at a press conference.
The coming pension increase is based on the average monthly inflation rate from August 2022 to July 2023, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported.
Austria has been plagued by lingering high inflation since early 2022, mainly driven by surging energy prices.
While the country's inflation rate has declined from over 10 percent in late 2022 to 7.5 percent in August this year, it remained high compared to other countries in the eurozone, according to Statistics Austria. (1 euro = 1.07 U.S. dollar) ■
