Projeções de longo prazo para o regime geral de previdência social: O debate no Fórum Nacional de Previdência Social

The National Forum for Social Security (FNPS) was the main happening occurred in 2007 for people interested on this subject. Long term forecasts for the General Regime of Social Security (RGPS), produced by the Secretariat for Social Security Policies (SPS/MPS), were strongly debated during the Forum. Criticism was addressed both to assumptions adopted by SPS/MPS (e.g., GDP growth rates and share of registered jobs in the labour market) and to structural features of the forecast model (e.g., the rigid relationship between revenues, wages and GDP). The first purpose of this paper is to present and to defend both the assumptions and the model adopted by SPS/MPS. The second purpose is to verify if several policies suggested during the FNPS would be effective to stabilize RGPS expenditures and balance in the long term. The results obtained demonstrated that administrative improvements, growth in registered jobs and in female participation rates could improve RGPS revenues and reduce its imbalance both in the short and medium term, but would not be enough to avoid the strong acceleration of expenditures and deficits in the long run.