Social security budget unable to stand on its own

The social security budget will be able to stand on its own as late as the year 2045, when it is expected to no longer rely on massive money transfers from the state budget in order to cover its deficit, according to simulations conducted at the Finance Ministry.

Meanwhile, the public pension system ought to be reformed, so as to avoid a crisis at the level of the state’s capacity to make the necessary payments. And the costs of this reform, which has not been implemented so far, according to the Finance Ministry, will also take its toll on the state budget.

Social security contribution collection and management activities were taken over by the Finance Ministry early this year.

For the time being, there has been no improvement in the collecting activities, not even in the context where contribution levels have been cut down to a total of 49.5%. However, it will become increasingly difficult to support this decreasing trend, in the absence of a surge in revenues.

Practically, the social security budget lives as a formal structure, largely at the expense of the state budget that periodically provides the sums it needs to cover payments.

Beside the reduction of contribution levels, the decrease in revenues from contributions owed by employers and from individual contributions owed by employees was generated by the drop in the average number of employees by 58,000 persons since the beginning of this year and by the 27,000 ROL cut-down in the average gross monthly wages. And, last but not least, in the first five months of this year, the collecting degree was below projections.