In the medium term, the pension system deficit could be a little larger than expected. This is one of the salient conclusions of the annual report of the Retirement Orientation Council (COR), which was sent on Monday June 10 to the members of this body, in an almost final version, and which must be made public THURSDAY. After having generated surpluses in 2021, 2022 and 2023, pension systems, taken as a whole, should plunge back into the red, with a balance between expenditure and revenue which would be negative in 2030: the “hole” would represent – 0 .4% of the target domestic product (GDP), compared to – 0.2% in the projections of the previous annual report of June 2023.
Beyond this figure, revealing a small deterioration, the COR modified the presentation of its work, as well as certain hypotheses to carry out its calculations. The results, for the long term, do not really contain any surprises, but they offer a slightly different image of the financial prospects of our pay-as-you-go system: from 2024 and for the following forty-five years, no return to balance does not take shape. The observation is drawn up according to a new method, which is criticized by several unions, because it highlights a lasting deficit and would thus, implicitly, prepare minds for the need to make additional efforts, after the 2023 reform which has postponed 62 to 64 years the age of eligibility for a pension.
If the financing needs in 2030 turn out to be greater than expected, it is, in particular, due to additional expenditure which could not be taken into consideration in the last annual report, due to lack of being known at the time: pensions provided by the Agirc-Arrco private supplementary scheme were increased by 4.9%, on 1er November 2023, while the COR expected 3.8%. Basic pensions also benefited from an even more energetic boost (+5.3% in 1er January 2024). In the end, the executive risks not achieving its objective: to bring the retirement system back into the green by 2030. However, it is with this in mind that the executive power had placed itself by postponing the retirement system by two years. legal retirement age.
Disparities according to regimes
Subsequently, the whole formed by the approximately forty existing regimes would remain below the waterline until 2070, with a deficit equal to 0.8% of GDP. But it is not so much the percentage, as such, that attracts attention: it is more the way in which it is presented. From now on, the COR delivers projections according to “a reference scenario” in terms of growth in labor productivity (+ 1% per year on average). This is a major change, driven by the president of the body, the economist Gilbert Cet, in office since November 2023.
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