THE National Insurance Scheme (NIS) from January 1 will be increasing the minimum rates for Old Age and Invalidity Pension, weekly and monthly insurable earnings ceilings and funeral benefits.

In a release, the scheme said the minimum rate for Old Age and Invalidity Pension will increase from $27,500 to $30,000 per month while all other pensions above the minimum pension will be increased by two per cent.

This is in keeping with the increase given in January 2017 where the pension increased from $25,000 to $27,500.

The insurable earnings ceiling, which is the upper limit on earnings that attract NIS contributions, will be increased weekly and monthly.

The monthly insurable earnings ceiling will be increased from $220,000 to $240,000 per month while the weekly insurable earnings ceiling will increase from $50,769 per week to $55,385 per week.

This ceiling had also been increased in January 2017 from $200,000 to $220,000 per month and $46,154 per week to $50,769 per week.

And finally, the funeral grant given to offset the funeral expenses of a deceased insured person or his/her spouse will be increased from $40,398 to $44,438.

Despite the scheme recording a deficit of some $95,368,000 (just less than $1B) for the period January 2017 to August 2017, the social security organisation has been able to issue these increases.

The deficit mentioned was recorded after the organisation garnered $13.6B in revenue (or 67 per cent of the $20.2B budgeted for the financial year) for the period but expended some $13.7B (or 70 per cent of the budgeted $19.4B).

NIS General Manager Holly Greaves said, in October, this deficit was $93,849,000 or 1.6 per cent more than the budgeted deficit of $93,841,000.

However, it was projected that by the end of 2017, total income would be approximately $21.4B while the projected expenditure would reach around $21.1B.