BRAZIL'S SOCIAL SECURITY DEFICIT: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRASILIA 001151 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS NSC FOR FEARS TREASURY FOR OASIA - DAS LEE, D.DOUGLASS STATE PASS TO FED BOARD OF GOVERNORS FOR ROBITAILLE USDOC FOR 4332/ITA/MAC/WH/OLAC/JANDERSEN/ADRISCOLL/MWAR D USDOC FOR 3134/ITA/USCS/OIO/WH/RD/SHUPKA STATE PASS USAID FOR LAC E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EFIN ECON PGOV BR SUBJECT: BRAZIL'S SOCIAL SECURITY DEFICIT: THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM REF: A) BRASILIA 0961 B) BRASILIA 0790 C) BRASILIA 1036 (U) This cable is sensitive but unclassified, please protect accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Brazilian pensioners recently have been subjected to a burdensome requirement to appear in person to reregister with the social security administration (INSS) in order to continue receiving their pension payments. The requirement, problematic for elderly and sometimes infirm retirees, has sparked public protests in places but is meant to help the INSS clear the books of "phantom" pensioners, whose families continue collecting their INSS pensions even after their deaths. The GoB has resorted to the re-registration, among other measures, in an attempt to address the growing deficit in the INSS system, which provides pensions and medical/disability payments to private sector employees. The problems run much deeper than phantom pensioners, however, according to analysts with whom we have spoken. These cited Lula's minimum wage hikes (to which the minimum pension level is pegged),lack of a minimum retirement age, generous benefits and the use of INSS pensions as a social program/wealth transfer mechanism as key issues that must be dealt with. The problem is a growing one: the INSS deficit almost doubled, from 1.1% of GDP in 2002 to 1.98% of GDP in 2005, and is expected to continue widening to 2.33% of GDP in 2006. Moreover, the deficit, which is financed from general revenues, increasingly is squeezing other federal expenditures, particularly public investments. The issue will thus be a priority for whatever administration takes office in January 2007. While Finance Minister Mantega has acknowledged to WHA A/S Shannon that the GoB understood it would have to reform the INSS system, he admitted that electoral politics make it difficult to debate the problem publicly. End Summary. INSS Deficit Rockets Despite Previous Reforms -------------- ¶2. (U) The deficit in Brazil's social security system, a pay-as-you-go scheme, is growing despite two previous reforms meant to address the problem. Both of those efforts, the most recent in 1998/1999, when the INSS deficit was about 1% of GDP, increased worker contributions and reduced benefits slightly. Although the measures were predicted to stabilize the INSS deficit at 1% of GDP, its growth continued, initially slowly and then accelerating more recently. The deficit reached 1.98% of GDP in 2005 and is predicted to grow to 2.33% of GDP in 2006. TABLE - INSS DEFICIT (Percent of GDP) 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 /1 -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- INSS Revenues (payroll tax) 5.3% 5.2% 5.3% 5.6% 5.6% INSS Expenditures 6.4% 6.9% 7.1% 7.58% 7.93% INSS Deficit 1.1% 1.7% 1.8% 1.98% 2.33% INSS Deficit as percent of federal 6.1% 9.8% 10.1% 10.3% 12.7% expenditures -------------- -------------- /1 - Predicted 2006 values -Data Source: Planning Ministry ¶3. (U) The deficit is due primarily to increased outlays, with which BRASILIA 00001151 002 OF 003 contributions -- primarily payroll taxes on the salaries of formal sector employees -- have not kept pace. (Note: the Lula Administration took action early in 2003 to limit the growth of the deficit in the public-employees pension system, but did not touch the broader private-sector social security system.) The GoB has taken administrative actions to improve INSS management and reduce waste, such as the re-registration effort to remove phantom payees from the rolls. It also has attempted to increase efficiency, including through the de facto merger of the INSS tax-collection wing (Receita da Previdencia) with the federal government's tax administration (Receita Federal),which it hopes will improve its tax payment enforcement efforts. Finally, it has tightened requirements for payment of ballooning medical benefits, a significant portion of which was believed to be fraudulent. Problems Run Deep -------------- ¶4. (SBU) While these administrative actions have had some limited effect, the problems run much deeper. UN Economist Carlos Mussi argued to Econoff that foremost among these is that the Lula administration granted substantial increases in the minimum wage, amounting to 13% in real terms, in 2004 and 2005. As the minimum pension benefit level is constitutionally linked to the minimum wage, social security accounts have suffered. Former Treasury Secretary Joaquim Levy published a document at the end of March -- SIPDIS immediately prior to leaving the GoB to join the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) -- which warned that the real minimum wage increases of 2005 and 2006 would feed through not only to general government accounts, but also to the INSS deficit. Raul Velloso, a prominent fiscal expert with ties to the opposition PSDB party, told Econoff that for every one Real increase in the minimum wage, INSS benefit payments (about 61% of which are paid at the minimum-wage level) jump by Reals 200 million (about USD 91 million). ¶5. (SBU) There is a significant social policy element to these minimum-wage pensions, most of which are paid to the "rural pensioners" and to many urban poor. These workers become eligible for the minimum pension -- at age 65 for men or age 60 for women -- based on need rather than past contributions to the INSS system. Rural pensioners, many of whom were subsistence farmers, need not prove that they contributed into the system at all. Poor urban workers, frequently employed by informal enterprises, need only show occasional contributions to the system to become eligible. According to Velloso, were it not for paying rural pensions, the INSS system currently would be running a cash surplus. This means that the formal sector workers' payroll taxes are partially subsidizing the rural pensions. ¶6. (SBU) While income transfer programs benefiting the elderly poor are a necessary part of the social safety net, Velloso made the case that they ought to be implemented more transparently, as a social program paid for directly from the central government budget, not through INSS payroll taxes. The expensive rural INSS pensions program, however, is singled out by one academic study as the single government program with the greatest impact in reducing rural poverty in Brazil over the last decade. Most analysts agree that de-linking the minimum pension benefit from the minimum wage is a necessary step for improving INSS finances, but note this would require a politically-controversial constitutional amendment. ¶7. (SBU) Another key structural problem is that for many contributors there is no minimum retirement age. Anyone who has worked and contributed to the system for the minimum number of years (35 for men and 30 for women) can draw a pension. It's not uncommon practice for many Brazilians, therefore, to retire in their mid-fifties on a full pension (i.e. not reduced to reflect their greater expected remaining lifespan as compared to workers retiring in their mid-sixties). One measure of the problem this creates is that the "Dependency Ratio" in the INSS system (i.e. the number of active workers that support each pensioner),already has reached about 1.5, well below that of the U.S. and most European countries. Benefits, moreover, also are generous by comparison with contributions and can, in many cases, amount to 100% of the average BRASILIA 00001151 003 OF 003 of a person's highest four years of earnings. Squeezing other Federal Expenditures -------------- ¶8. (SBU) The INSS deficit is an increasing problem for GoB fiscal management. A Central Bank contact explained that while there is no legal requirement that the GoB do so, it chooses as a matter of course to cover the shortfall in the INSS system out of general revenues. As the INSS deficit has grown more quickly than federal general revenues, it increasingly has squeezed other GoB expenditures, mounting from 6.1% of federal expenditures in 2002 to a predicted 12.7% of federal expenditures in 2006. Given the extensive set of constitutional earmarks and requirements for revenue sharing with states and municipalities (ref B),the growth in the INSS deficit has proven particularly difficult to accommodate and has been a principal factor behind the precipitous decline in federal investment expenditures over the same period. Uniquely in the contentious fiscal policy debate in Brazil, the decline in federal investment, particularly infrastructure investment, has been unanimously lamented across the political spectrum here as a public policy failure. ¶9. (SBU) Finance Minister Mantega told visiting WHA A/S Tom Shannon on May 22 that the GoB understands there is a need to reform the social security system, but that it was not the time publicly to discuss the issue during the presidential campaign (ref C). Mantega did not elaborate on what the GoB might do to address the deficit. The UN's Mussi said it would take a "courageous" candidate to openly call for reforming the INSS system during the campaign. Mussi nevertheless argued that the new President at a minimum would need to obtain Congressional approval of a constitutional reform de-linking the minimum wage from the minimum pension level. A minimum retirement age also is necessary, he argued. Growth of Private Pension Funds -------------- ¶10. (U) The INSS system's ill-health has proven a boon to the private pension business, which has seen tremendous growth, albeit from a relatively small base. The industry has two segments, employer-sponsored plans funded by joint employer/employee contributions and open plans into which any individual can pay. According to the private pension industry association (ANAPP),total reserves (i.e. the sum of all deposits to date minus payouts) in open pension plans have grown from about Reals 3 billion in 1996 to Reals 10 billion in 2002, then jumped sharply to Reals 60 billion in 2004 and are expected to close out 2006 at close to Reals 100 billion (about USD 45 billion at current exchange rates, or 5% of GDP). Employer sponsored plans currently amount to a further 7% of GDP. The GoB in 2005 reduced the income tax rate applied to long term investments, a step which has helped boost private pension contributions. While still relatively small in international terms, these private pension funds are becoming large enough to change Brazilian financial markets, providing longer term capital to the markets. ¶11. (SBU) Comment: There is a general acknowledgement among the political class that the INSS system must be reformed in order to stanch the hemorrhage it causes to federal fiscal accounts. But any attempts to change the system will elicit strong resistance from entrenched beneficiaries, many of whom view their pensions as a "right" they have conquered. This fact will make INSS reform -- and broader fiscal/budget reform -- the "elephant in the room" of the 2006 presidential campaign, the critical issue that all know is there but none will address. Whether the new administration inaugurated in January 2007, regardless of whom is elected, will be able to muster a sufficiently strong coalition to push through substantive reform, remains an open question. CHICOLA