Egypt, by third world standards, traditionally boasted a relatively generous egalitarian insurance- based welfare regime centered on contribution-based pensions and a universal food subsidy system. The onset of neoliberal reforms since 1991 has been associated with hidden retrenchment in the country’s social policies, marked by dilution of universal subsidy benefits and introduction of a new layer of targeted productivist welfare, as a parallel track benefiting segments of the lower middle classes, without overhauling the welfare regime or restructuring its main programs. On the eve of the January 25th uprising, in collaboration with the World Bank Mubarak’s regime took tentative steps towards more explicit restructuring through semi-privatization of Egypt’s pension system, or gradual transitioning from the the Pay As You Go system to the individual accounts system. The controversial bill was approved by Parliament in June 2010 and was expected to voluntarily affect new labor entrants starting from 2012, but was never signed off by the then head of state. The uprising, which called for “bread, freedom and social justice,” ushered in continuation of earlier patterns of welfare reforms through minimizing leakage, and limiting benefits without undermining access, as well as expanding targeted productivist initiatives. However, post-Mubarak elites refrained from seeing through the enactment and implementation of a new pension system, instead the system has undergone organizational parametric reforms in recent years. What are the underlying political economy dynamics that have constrained the pension reform process in Egypt pre and post the uprising? The paper draws on: in-depth interviews with current and ex-officials in charge of the social insurance and pension fund, senior decision-makers at the Ministry of Finance, and specialized technocrats, who were involved in drafting the reform bill under Mubarak. I argue that the dominant coalition maintenance imperatives and cultural norms of citizenship shaped the acceptable contours for policy reform while pressure from labor unions and pensioners’ associations played a limited role in shaping pension reforms in Egypt.