Brazil pension facts of the day

Pension spending is already the equivalent of 12% of GDP, half as much again as the average among members of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries that have many more senior citizens (see chart). The combined annual shortfall of the pension schemes is 4.8% of GDP, equivalent to more than half the government budget deficit. The state of Rio supports more public-sector pensioners than working civil servants; for every police colonel on active duty five are retired. The state is nearly bankrupt.

…Its citizens collect pensions when they are 58 on average; Mexicans toil into their 70s. Brazilians on average incomes get pensions worth four-fifths of their pre-retirement earnings, which is generous by most countries’ standards. Widows and widowers inherit the full pensions of their deceased spouses, which they can combine with their own.

…Inflated by big increases in the minimum wage, pensions now account for more than half of the government’s non-interest spending.

Here is the full story in The Economist.

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