The Chile pension system ( Spanish: ''Sistema Previsional'') refers to old-age, disability and survivor

pension A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a " defined benefit plan", wh ...

s for workers in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. The pension system was changed by José Piñera, during

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

dictatorship A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no Limited government, limitations. Politics in a dictatorship are controlled by a dictator, ...

, on November 4, 1980 from a

PAYGO PAYGO (Pay As You GO) is the practice of financing expenditures with Collective investment scheme, funds that are currently available rather than borrowed. Budgeting The PAYGO compels new spending or tax changes not to add to the federal debt. No ...

-system to a fully funded capitalization system run by

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The private sector employs most of the workfo ...

pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides pension, retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the ...

s. Many critics and supporters see the reform as an important experiment under real conditions, that may give conclusions about the impact of the full conversion of a PAYGO-system to a capital funded system. The development was therefore internationally observed with great interest. Under Michelle Bachelet's government the Chile Pension system was reformed again.

Pension system of 1926

A social security system was introduced in Chile in the 1920s, which included a PAYGO pension system. By 1973 the funding of the pension fund was low, though 73% of all Chilean workers paid into the system. The reason for this was that almost all workers contributed only the statutory minimum contribution, and many successfully evaded pension contributions. The poor payment record is attributed primarily to the fact that individual contributions had little correlation with anticipated pension benefits.

Pension reform of 1980-81

On November 4, 1980, under the leadership of José Piñera, Secretary of Labor and Pensions under dictator

with the collaboration of his team of Chicago Boys, the PAYGO pension system was changed to a capital funded system run by investment funds.Joaquin Vial Ruiz-Tagle, Francisca Castro, The Chilean Pension System,

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; , OCDE) is an international organization, intergovernmental organization with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and international trade, wor ...

Ageing Working Papers, 1998, page 6 José Piñera had the idea of privatizing the pension system for the first time when reading the book Capitalism and Freedom from

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and ...

Several (private)

s, the so-called ''Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones'' (AFPs), have been implemented. For all citizens who are legally defined as workers, employers must pay a portion of earnings to a pension fund. Workers who had already paid in the old system got an option to continue to pay into the old system. But the statutory minimum contribution to the new private pension funds was set 11% lower than the contributions to the old pension system; therefore most workers changed to the new pension system. The members of the Chilean military who implemented the new AFP system excluded themselves from it, keeping their pensions from the Caja de Previsión de la Defensa Nacional. The pensions of the military are substantially higher than those of the rest of Chileans, being most often similar to the income they have during active service. However, differently from what a regular, society-wide, PAYGO system would operate, military pensions go to a small section of the population and are financed by all of the taxpayers in the country.

Overview

The Chilean workers yearly contributions in the private pension fund are amounting to about 3.5% of gross domestic product. The pension payments from the pension funds are still relatively low, mainly because yet just a few depositors have reached the retirement age. Until 2008 the private pension funds have accumulated capital of an amount of 52.77% of gross domestic product.

Government's responsibility

The establishment and the operation of the private pension funds are regulated by law. For example any pension fund must deposit minimum reserves. The types of investments that are permitted are defined by law. The compliance of the private pension funds is supervised by a government regulator, the ''Superintendencia de AFP'', now called ''Superintendencia de Pensiones''. There are government guarantees for the following cases: # All citizens who have contributed to a fund for at least 20 years are guaranteed a minimum pension. The difference between the minimum pension and the pension entitlement from the investment fund is paid by government. # If a pension fund is unable to perform a defined minimum profit, it will be liquidated and the collected assets will be transferred to another fund. In this case, the government solves the assets gap. # In case of

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

of a pension fund the government pays out the pensions on public expenses. The government pays a fixed amount as social assistance for those citizens who are not even entitled to minimum pension, the ''Pensiones Asistenciales'' (PASIS). But the provided amount of money is usually not nearly big enough to cover all people in need. Due to the conversion from the PAYGO to the funded system, conversion costs will arise until the year 2045. Contributions are made almost entirely through the new system, there are almost no payments left through the old system. The difference between the remaining contributions and the pensions that have to be paid out has to be financed by the Chilean government. These conversion costs are a big burden for the government budget:

Contributors

All workers and employees must pay into the system. Mandatory contributions amount to 10% of the monthly income, the part of the monthly income that exceeds $2,800 U.S. (60 UF) is non-contributory. Self-employed individuals may contribute voluntarily, and salaried workers can also enhance their pension through additional voluntary contributions. The Chilean armed forces and

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

do not contribute in the workers pension system but participate in a separate PAYGO system. The pension contributions are

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

deductible In an insurance policy, the deductible (in British English, the excess) is the amount paid Out-of-pocket expenses, out of pocket by the policy holder before an insurance provider will pay any expenses. In general usage, the term ''deductible'' m ...

. The worker can choose one of six private pension administrators and change at will and also choose from among five funds (A to E, with A being the riskiest).

Administrative costs

The pension funds are privately administered. The amount of administrative costs are not regulated by law. But there a two-year obligation for a new affiliated to be included in a single fund, selected by public bidding, based in the level of administrative costs. The user contributes to their pension with a contribution of 10% of income. In addition, the user pays administrative costs in the order of 1% from income. The user don´t pay any cost while unemployed.

Coverage

The performance of the Chilean pension funds is not very good compared with the performance of private pension funds of

developed countries A developed country, or advanced country, is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy, and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less industrialized nations. Most commonly, the criteria for eval ...

, but that performance is partly attributed to special factors. The amount of administrative costs was considered a problem of the Chilean pension system but have decreased significantly going from 15% in 1983 to 1,8% in 1993 of accumulated assets. In addition to or instead of the regular private pension workers may be entitled to state aid: Retired workers whose private pensions are below a defined level are entitled to minimum pension ''(Garantía de Pensión Mínima).'' In this case, the government pays an additional pension.Joaquin Vial Ruiz-Tagle, Francisca Castro, The Chilean Pension System,

Ageing Working Papers, 1998, page 8 People who have paid in nothing or contributed less than 20 years may get social assistance, the ''Pensiones Asistenciales (PASIS)''. But the Pensiones Asistenciales are paid from a fixed budget that is usually not big enough to cover everyone in need. The number of workers who actually pay into the pension system decreased from 64% in 1980 (before the reform) to 58% by 2006 According to Patricio Navia an Diego Portales University professor, most people perceive the costs of pensions and the pensions themselves as unfair. Therefore they try to evade pension contributions. Andras Uthoff, the director of the ''Social Development Division'' of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America ( ECLAC) states that the reformed Chilean pension system does not work with the reformed Chilean labor market because only a small percentage of workers are able to finance meaningful pensions. According to the projection of Berstein, Larrain and Pino Rios from the year 2005 (based on data from the period 1981 - 2003) the kind of pensions to expect are predicted as following: Sebastián Piñera, the brother of José Piñera and later president of Chile, said during the presidential candidacy in 2006:

Pension reform of 2008

Under the Bachelet government, the pension system was reformed again in the year 2008. Andrés Velasco, the leading economic adviser to the government, addressed the two main problems as the coverage of the population and the amount of the administrative costs. Too many people are outside the pension system, and

capital accumulation Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form ...

by using the pension funds is quite expensive The reform follows a recommendation by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, who has found in the 1980 pension system a strong redistributive component at the expense of low paid or occasionally unemployed workers. A big part of the Chilean population is not able to finance meaningful pensions, because many workers are not able to regularly contribute a higher amount of money. Additionally many workers have difficulties to achieve the 20 years of contributions to at least qualify for minimum pension. Since the pension funds charge high fixed administrative costs per insured person and only a small portion of the administrative costs depend on the amount of the capital account, capital accumulation by pension funds is very unprofitable for workers with lower incomes. The World Bank therefore recommended that the minimum pension and the Pensiones Asistenciales should be abolished and instead introduced a public risk pooling device financed by VAT tax revenue. The reform includes mainly the following points:

: Latin American Economic Outlook 2008, , 2007, page 71, 72 * The minimum pension and the Pensiones Asistenciales were replaced by a tax-funded solidary pension system (SPS). All citizens older than 65 years, that lived in Chile for at least 20 years and do not have a private pension on a defined minimum level qualify for an SPS pension. * The legally defined framework within which pension fund investments are allowed has been extended. * Within a transitional period lasting until 2015, self-employed individuals are also to be integrated into the pension system.

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Pension Superintendency
''Supporting pension reform:''
International Center for Pension Reform
founded and headed by José Piñera himself ''Critical of pension reform:'' * * Nicholas Barr:
The Truth About Pension Reform
', in: Finance & Development, September 2001, vol. 38, no. 3.

References

{{Americas topic, Pensions in

Society of Chile Economy of Chile