THE Social security recorded a positive balance of 1,619 million euros during the first eight months of the year, the equivalent of 0.1% of GDP, after recording 145,585 million euros during this period, or 6.6% more, compared to expenditure of a value of 143,966 million (+7.6% over one year), according to data published this Monday by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. However, this surplus is the result of tax increase through the Government’s Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (MEI), and by which businesses and workers they will have to pay more taxeswhen executing a price increase.
Concretely, the MEI consists of a systematic increase in social contributions paid each year by all companies, workers and self-employed people in the country. On January 1, the Executive launched the MEI by increasing the social contributions A 0.6%. Officially, 0.5% of this increase is borne by the company and 0.1% by the worker. Likewise, the MEI will evolve from 0.6% in 2023 until 1.2% in 2029 Thus, by the end of 2024, the increase will be 0.7%.
109.740 million social security gains
This positive Social Security balance occurred after the system collected 109,740 million euros by contributions, 7.9% more than during the first eight months of 2023 and 33.4% more compared to 2019, the last year not affected by the pandemic.
Income from the Intergenerational Equity Mechanism (IEM), in force since January 2023, raised 2,443 million euros until August, or 42.7% more than in the same period of 2023.
The increase in contribution income through August was due to employee contributions, which increased by 7.8% over one yearto 103.604 million euros, while those made by the unemployed increased by 8.5%, to 6.137 million euros.
