Lower retirement age will add another PLN 25 billion to Social Security’s deficit by 2019

Poland’s Social Security System (ZUS) could fall short by PLN 25 billion over the next three years due to the lowering of retirement age, according to several analyses conducted by ZUS, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reported. This is the worst-case scenario, in which all the employees who will be entitled to retire earlier take advantage of their new right. The law lowering retirement age will come into force in October 2017. The social security system may have to scrape an additional PLN 2 billion in 2017, PLN 10 billion in 2018 and PLN 13 billion in 2019. Together with the extra shortfall caused by lower retirement age, ZUS - which has incurred deficit ever since the pension reform of 1999 - will likely need an injection of PLN 61 billion from the state budget in 2019, PLN 65.4 billion in 2020 and PLN 70 billion in 2021.