ON DECRYPT
After the finance bill Friday, the government presents another major issue on Monday: the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS). A year ago, very proud, the Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn announced a return to the green of the accounts of the Secu in 2019, after 17 consecutive years of deficit. Finally, the PLFSS will be much tighter. Meanwhile, the crisis of "yellow vests" has passed by.
5.4 billion deficit in 2019
A number of emergency measures, announced in late 2018 to respond to this social movement, have indeed sealed the accounts, depriving the Secu of significant revenues. The social exemption of overtime from 1 January 2020, for example, represented 1.2 billion euros less in the funds. The cancellation of the increase of the CSG for the most modest retirees, it is 1.5 billion of loss of profit. In addition, economic growth has been less alert than expected this year, resulting in fewer social security contributions.
Instead of finishing in surplus, the Social Security will plunge in 2019: 5.4 billion deficit. Next year, growth may not be better, which can not hope to return to the green until 2023.
Pension reform (even more) complicated
This is coupled with another bad news: this deficit seriously complicates the equation for pension reform that is preparing. Since the beginning, the government has defended it: it is not a reform to restore the accounts but to put justice back into the system. And the unions, for their part, minimize the drift of the deficit. Before the "yellow vests" measurements, the accounts of the retirement branch tended to balance. It is not the case anymore.
So it may be necessary to put back on the carpet the question that annoys: without increasing the duration of activity of employees substantially beyond 62 years, the accounts of the pension insurance will remain in the red. Reforming the pension system to switch to a universal scheme was not easy. Doing it while taking steps to eliminate the deficit is even less so.