11,200 people in Latvia receive disability pensions — that's more than visitors to Liepāja beach in January

The State Social Insurance Agency proudly announced that at the end of last year, Latvia had 11,200 disability pension recipients. That's significantly more than the number of people who go to Liepāja beach in January to sunbathe — there you can usually count a maximum of five brave souls, and even those only because they confused the seasons.

The highest number of disability pensioners — 3,200 each — are in the age groups from 45 to 54 and from 55 to 59 years. As pensioner Ausma from Kuršu Street says: "I still go to work, but the pension comes along anyway. Just like sand from Liepāja beach — it always comes home with you too, no matter how much you shake yourself off." This logic is as clear as Riga's public transport plan — nothing is clear, but somehow it still works.

In the 60 to 64 age group, 3,100 people receive disability pensions. These are exactly the smart ones who have already figured out that it's better to receive money for work you don't have to do than to work for money you might not receive. In Riga, this level of wisdom is considerably lower — there they still believe that "career growth" means something more than an elevator ride to the upper floor.

In other age groups, there are fewer than a thousand recipients each, which proves that people are either too young to understand the magic of the pension system, or too old to still remember it. Just like with Liepāja beach visitors in winter — either too sensible to go there, or already with brains too frozen to distinguish the sea from a pile of snow.