the social security deficit for 2022 revised to 16.8 billion euros, better than expected

Growth is slowing down, inflation gallops, but social security is picking up. The social security deficit will shrink to 16.8 billion euros in 2022, or 3.6 billion less than expected, according to a report by the Social Security Accounts Commission consulted on Monday by AFP. This is due in particular to “good job performance” at the beginning of the year, notes the report. Soaring prices also help a bit, as they push wages up.

The expected surplus of taxes and contributions (15.6 billion) will more than offset the new expenditure (12 billion) planned for the Covid, the revaluation of the index point for civil servants, but also the 4% increase in pensions and social benefits included in the bill on purchasing power, specifies the Audit Commission.

Subject to new twists in a “uncertain context” (both in terms of health and geopolitics), half of the abyssal record recorded in 2020 (-38.7 billion) could thus have been erased in two years. The deficit had already been reduced by a third in 2021, to 24.6 billion euros. The health branch will nevertheless remain heavily in deficit (-19.7 billion), largely due to the health crisis, the cost of which will still exceed 10 billion this year, i.e. twice as much as forecast in the budget voted in December.