First, China's pension insurance system reform of the current financial difficulties
(1) The problem of "empty accounts" in personal accounts is serious.
Although the accumulated balance of China's endowment insurance fund is huge, the amount of "empty account" in personal accounts is even larger, reaching 654.38+025.26 billion yuan by the end of 2009. Among them, the survey of personal accounts in 13 provinces and cities in China shows that * * * personal account funds are 157 billion yuan, accounting for only 8.9% of the current accumulated bookkeeping amount of personal accounts, and the amount of "empty accounts" is still as high as160.394 billion yuan. More importantly, the scale of empty accounts continues to increase substantially. In 2009, the amount of "empty accounts" in personal accounts increased by 248.47 billion yuan compared with 2008, accounting for 3.63% of the fiscal revenue of that year. Therefore, if the scale of "empty accounts" in personal accounts continues to increase, even if the state finances increase the allocation of funds for endowment insurance, the serious problem of "empty accounts" will be difficult to solve.
(2) The improvement of the coverage of old-age insurance has aggravated the problem of "empty accounts" in personal accounts.
In 2009, the "empty account" of China's old-age insurance only involved 2l567 million employees who had participated in the basic old-age insurance for urban enterprises. Therefore, if the coverage of old-age insurance is further improved and the current system is expanded, the "empty account" fund gap of individual accounts will inevitably increase again. The existing data show that the increase in the number of people participating in the basic old-age insurance for urban enterprises and the increase in the ratio of the number of people participating in the basic old-age insurance for urban enterprises to the number of urban employees are closely and positively related to the increase in the amount of "empty accounts" in personal accounts. According to the statistical bulletin on the development of human resources and social security in 2008-2009, the number of people participating in the basic old-age insurance for urban enterprises in 2008 and 2009 increased by 65,438+0,765,438+0.6 million and 65,438+0,665,438+0.6 million respectively over the previous year, and the number of people participating in the basic old-age insurance for urban enterprises and the number of urban employees increased.
(C) China's long-term fiscal deficit makes it difficult to allocate "empty accounts" to individual accounts of pension funds.
Since 1990, China's finance has been running in deficit except for a slight surplus in 2007. The fiscal deficits in 2008-20 10 were 12623 10 billion yuan, 77.816.3 billion yuan and 649.5 billion yuan respectively. Therefore, even considering that the personal account pension is a flowing sequence in the payment process, it is a difficult problem to transfer and fill the "empty account" of about 60 billion yuan per year. If the scale of "empty accounts" continues to increase, the fiscal revenue may fluctuate, and it will be more difficult to make up for the "empty accounts" of personal accounts of pension funds through financial transfer.
Second, the reasons for the financial difficulties in the reform of China's pension insurance system
(1) The rising transition cost leads to huge "empty accounts" in personal accounts.
Under the pay-as-you-go system, the government uses employees' contributions to pay the pensions of retired people. So there is no personal account at this time, and there is no corresponding personal account fund accumulation. However, after the establishment of the "unified account" pension insurance model, the individual account will implement the fund accumulation system, but at the same time, the future pension rights and interests accumulated by the insured who did not establish the individual account before the reform will be recognized, so there will be a problem of making up for the pension rights and interests of the original insured, that is, the transition cost. This part of the transitional cost that should have been borne by the state is stipulated to be paid by the social pooling fund. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth payment of pensions in the current period, all localities adopt the "mixed account" management of overall accounts and personal accounts, and solve the problem of pension payment by overdrawing personal accounts, resulting in a huge number of "empty accounts" in personal accounts, and the scale is constantly expanding.
(2) The population is aging.
Pay-as-you-go system has the characteristics of simple management and income redistribution between generations and generations. Moreover, under the condition that the total population has not changed much and the age structure of the population is reasonable, it can not only achieve financial balance, but also avoid liquidation risks. However, with the arrival and aggravation of the aging population, the existing balance will be broken. According to statistics, in 2000, the elderly over 60 years old accounted for10.8% of the total population in China; It is estimated that by 2030, the population aging will reach its peak, and the total population over 60 years old will be about 300 million, exceeding 20% of the total population. This means that the number of people paying pensions will drop rapidly, while the beneficiaries of pension insurance will increase sharply. The ratio of pension beneficiaries to pension payers has increased from/kloc-0 1: 10 in the early 1990s to 1: 3 in 2004, which has clearly illustrated this point. Considering this situation in advance, China's pension insurance system began to change from pay-as-you-go system to "unified account combination" system. However, due to the huge transition cost and the rapid arrival of the aging population, the system of "unified accounting and integration" still cannot solve the problem of endowment insurance gap, and with the approaching of the peak of population aging, the financial difficulties caused by the funding gap will be further aggravated.
(C) economic decentralization has increased the financial difficulties in the reform of the old-age insurance system
Economic decentralization refers to the decentralization of economic management from the central government to local governments since the early 1980s, as well as the fiscal responsibility before 1994 and the tax sharing afterwards. Through economic decentralization, local governments have relatively independent economic management power and decision-making power, and have obtained financial incentives to promote economic development, which undoubtedly provides an effective incentive mechanism for China's economic development. On the other hand, economic decentralization has aggravated the financial difficulties in the reform of the old-age insurance system in China. Although economic decentralization can stimulate local economic development, the collection and management of pension funds mainly obeys and serves this goal because economic growth is mainly used as the assessment index of local governments. Even driven by the interests of short-term economic growth, ignoring the collection and supervision of pension funds and allowing units and individuals to run "empty accounts", the amount of "empty accounts" is increasing day by day, which aggravates the financial difficulties of system reform.
(D) The overall level of endowment insurance fund-raising is low.
Driven by interests, some enterprises conceal the number of employees and underreport the base of payment wages. Due to short-sighted behavior, individual employees subjectively evade paying endowment insurance premiums. Because the payment of "fee" is not mandatory compared with "tax", it is difficult to impose it. Therefore, the absolute amount and relative amount of endowment insurance fund financing in China are at a low level. From 2007 to 2009, China's social insurance income including endowment insurance was 872.9 billion yuan, 654.38+00.805 billion yuan and 654.38+02.780 billion yuan respectively, accounting for only 3.3%, 3.4% and 3.8% of GDP in that year. In 2007, the income of the United States, Britain, Austria, France, France and so on. This shows that due to the low level of total financing, China's outstanding pension financial difficulties are worsening.
(E) The regional division of basic old-age insurance leads to financial imbalance.
On the one hand, in the industrially developed areas, especially in the southeast coastal areas, due to the relatively young labor force, the burden of basic old-age insurance payment is relatively light, and the basic old-age insurance has a large balance, which does not need to be turned over according to the current system. On the other hand, in backward industrial areas, especially in old industrial bases such as Northeast China, due to the relatively aging labor force, the burden of paying basic old-age insurance is relatively heavy, and even some enterprises are unable to pay. Not only is the problem of "empty accounts" in personal accounts serious, but the current fund gap in the social pooling part of pensions is also quite large, which requires subsidies from the central government. In this way, due to the regional division of the basic old-age insurance fund, it is impossible to achieve national overall planning. In some areas, the central government needs to subsidize the expenditure of the endowment insurance fund, and in some areas, there is financial imbalance and the fund balance is huge. It is predicted that around 2030, when areas with large fund balances face the peak of pension payment at this stage, they will not only face financial difficulties, but also further aggravate this financial imbalance.
Three, to solve the financial difficulties of China's old-age insurance system reform countermeasures
(1) Reasonably digest the transition costs on the basis of overall pension planning.
At present, although there are huge "empty accounts" in China's pension funds, there are also considerable accumulated balances. If the pension can be co-ordinated, the accumulated balance can be used for investment in safe and effective operation mechanism and environment, and the investment surplus can be used to make up for the cost in the transition process. Social security trust funds in the United States and pension fund management companies in Chile provide successful examples in this regard. At present, China's financial market and legal supervision system are becoming more and more perfect, and it is fully qualified to make use of accumulated surplus to make profits from investment in order to digest the transition cost in system reform.
(2) Levy social security tax, adjust the income and expenditure of pension and management institutions, and make up for the pension gap caused by the aging population.
Compared with "fee", "tax" has the characteristics of compulsion and legalization. After levying social security tax, it not only ensures the tax base, but also encourages enterprises to actively pay social security tax through tax design, especially through preferential tax reduction and exemption design, thus increasing part of pension income. At present, there is a serious division of departments in the way of raising endowment insurance funds in China, which involves not only labor and social security departments, but also personnel and financial departments, with low management efficiency and high management cost. If this way continues, it will not only be unable to reasonably digest the transition cost, but also unable to cope with the huge funding gap brought about by the aging population. After the social security tax is levied, the tax department is responsible for the unified collection and payment of pensions, the financial department is responsible for the unified allocation, and the labor and social security department is responsible for the unified payment management. Specifically, the pension fund management company is responsible for the accumulated balance of investment profits, which will eventually make up for the pension gap brought about by the aging population.
(three) to strengthen the audit, improve the level of pension collection.
Under the current economic decentralization system in China, the interest game between endowment insurance and short-term economic growth of local governments is the main reason for the weak collection and the "empty account" operation. On the premise of economic decentralization, if the collection and management of pension and internal audit are taken as important indicators of local government performance evaluation and brought into the framework of political centralization, not only can the internal contradiction between economic decentralization and political centralization be solved to a great extent, but also the collection level of pension can be improved and the financial difficulties in the reform of endowment insurance system can be alleviated.
Author: Min Chenqian
Source: Economic Horizon
SETTING: East China Normal University, School of History and Culture of Shandong University.
Economic category: reform and development
Kubie: Sublibrary of Zhongjing Review
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