Baptiste Morin, edited by Yanis Darras 2:36 p.m., February 07, 2023

Will the government's pension reform plan really save money?

With the multiplication of concessions to convince the Republican deputies to vote for the reform, the social cost of the project exploded.

To the point that it could miss 1.5 billion euros in the financing of pensions.

Convince LR deputies to vote for the pension reform project.

This is the objective of the government, which knows that part of the ranks of the right-wing party remains reluctant to vote for the text.

So the executive multiplies the concessions.

Latest example: the possibility for people who started working between the ages of 20 and 21 to benefit from the long career scheme.

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7 billion spent

But with the proliferation of arrangements could call into question even the primary objective of the reform: to save money and prevent the pay-as-you-go system from being in deficit in the long term.

Until now, the will of the State is to push back the retirement age to 64 years, against 62 years currently, and to lengthen the duration of contribution until 43 years.

Enough to bring in 17.7 billion euros in 2030 and thus, fill quite a lot of the deficit then estimated at 13.5 billion euros on this date, all with a margin of more than four billion euros.

But, the State will have at the same time to finance the social aspect of the reform, inflated by the concessions.

Early departures for disability or incapacity, long careers, minimum pension of 1,200 euros for future retirees, but also for current retirees... In total, the bill amounts to nearly six billion euros, to which we must add the cost of extending long careers to those who started before the age of 21, ie a cost of approximately one billion additional euros. 

A flawed hypothesis? 

Result: the reform would cost in the state about 1.5 billion euros.

So, to cover this sum, the executive multiplies the avenues of financing and would think about increasing the old-age contributions of employers, those of local authorities and hospitals, or even that of employers, but only during conventional ruptures. 

The problem is that these ideas are only leads for microfinance.

Especially since the calculation is only based on the assumption of unemployment at 4.5%.

If it remains at 7.5% as currently, then the deficit of our system would widen to exceed six billion euros.