The Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, always emphasizes that pensions are totally sustainable. That the income is completely sufficient to meet the growing obligations. But the figures and facts do not say exactly the same thing. A good example of this is the new credit of 10,000 million that the State made last Monday to the system and, also, what the president of the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) confirmed yesterday, Cristina Herrero.
“There is a reality: Social Security is financed with loans from the State, not now, but for a long time. And there is another reality: a good part of the current improvement in the balance [presupuestario] is due to the increase in State transfers,” Herrero stated in his speech during a macroeconomic information day organized by the Association of Economic Information Journalists (APIE).
That is, pensions are financed to a large extent by those transfers that come from the taxes and not the contributions, which means doping the system and subtracting contribution and, in addition, an image is offered in terms of budget balance that does not correspond to reality.
So far in 2023, Social Security has entered 9.9% more for social contributions paid by companies and workers and which constitute their main source of income, reaching a total of 114,711 million euros. The problem is that this amount is not enough to meet your needs. bills, among which stands out the growing budget necessary to pay the pensionswhich grows annually due to the existence of more and more retirees, higher registrations and their revaluation with the CPI.
Since the system could only afford to pay the contributory pensions, It is now common for the State to make a transfer every year so that it can pay the rest of the items. For this exercise, there are budgets Current transfers of the State worth 38,916 million euros, of which only half will be allocated to the assumption of what has been called “improper expenses” and that the Toledo Pact Commission recommended that they be financed from the Budgets. The rest will be used to pay pensions and other benefits such as the Minimum Living Income or dependency aid, among others.