The Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA) recorded, in 2022, its first public accounting budget deficit since 2014, of 196 million euros, advanced today the Public Finance Council (CFP).
“Not since the year 2014 has this entity had a deficit situation,” indicates the CFP in the report on the budgetary evolution of Social Security and Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA) in 2022.
The negative balance reflects a deterioration of 277 million euros compared to the surplus of 81 million euros reached in 2021, and the growth in expenditure (5.1%) was more than double that recorded in revenue (2.4%), indicates the body chaired by Nazaré da Costa Cabral.
The effective revenue of the CGA totaled 10,611 million euros 2022, 245 million more than the previous year, an increase “influenced by the transfer from the State Budget [OE] intended to finance the policy measure regarding the payment of the exceptional supplement to CGA pensioners,” explains the CFP.
Without this extraordinary effect, revenue would have decreased by 94 million euros due to the fall in contributions to the CGA (-2.7%), because of the 3.8% decrease in the average number of subscribers and the 0.9% reduction in the wage bill subject to discounting.
The CGA stopped receiving subscribers in 2006, since the workers who joined the public administration as of that year started to contribute to Social Security.
CGA expenses, meanwhile, rose to 10,808 million euros in 2022, 522 million euros more than in the previous year, influenced by the payment of the exceptional supplement to pensioners, worth 339.1 million euros, according to the CFP.
Without this measure, expenditure would have increased by 183 million euros, of which 141 million relate to pensions and allowances under the responsibility of the CGA.
“Contributing to this evolution was not only the increase in the average number of retirees (+1,198, settling at 482,276), but also the average value of total retirement and retirement pensions (from 1,352 euros in 2021 to 1,375 euros/month in 2022),” the document can be read.
The report also states that the negative difference between the number of retirees and the number of subscribers has increased again, with the ratio of active to inactive at the end of 2022 being 0.80 active subscribers for each retiree, compared to 0.83 at the end of 2021.
Compared to what was foreseen in the State Budget for 2022, the CGA budget deficit was 105 million euros higher.
