Worker can have a discount of up to 40% in the INSS retirement; understand

Osmar Daniel, 56, says he contributed the maximum amounts to Social Security during his professional life. The job as a quality inspector in an industry, a position with unhealthy conditions that allows retirement with special time, ended at the age of 50, when he applied for retirement with the INSS. The benefit was granted, but with a value about 40% below the INSS ceiling, which in 2022 is R$ 7,087.22.

Paying contributions at the maximum amount, however, does not guarantee a ceiling pension. In Osmar’s case, the benefit was reduced as a result of the age at which he chose to retire.

Before the 2019 pension reform, the social security factor rule established a relationship between age, contribution time and life expectancy for pensions by contribution period. The calculation took into account an estimate of how long the person would receive the benefit, according to their age, based on data released by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). In most cases, there was a reduction in the benefit.

The purpose of the rule was to balance the amounts of benefits paid, as those who retire earlier tend to receive longer. This is what Newton Conde, an actuary consultant specializing in Social Security, explains. “That was the government’s intention: to try to hold the insured a little longer, so he doesn’t retire too early.”

The reform changes in the social security factor

After the Social Security reform, the social security factor started to be applied only in one transition rule, the 50% toll. Pensions are only paid under this system to workers who were less than two years away from retiring when the reform was approved and who meet the required toll.

For these pensions, the factor calculation continues to reduce the benefit of those who retire at a younger age.

Prior to the reform, the benefit took into account average wages as of July 1994, excluding the bottom 20%. Nowadays, there is no longer any discarding of these smaller values. The use of all salaries in the definition of the benefit amount is an important reducer that is applied to other pensions as well, even without the social security factor.

In the case of retirements by age, progressive age and by the points rule, the value of the benefit is 60% of the average salary plus 2% for each year of contribution after 15 years of payments, for women, and 20, for men. .

The only transition rule that allows receiving the full benefit, equivalent to 100% of the average contributions since July 1994, is the 100% toll.

Just as you can correct for less, there are less common situations in which the social security factor increases the benefit, explains the president of the IBDP (Brazilian Institute of Social Security Law), Adriane Bramante.

Waiting longer is not always advantageous

It may seem that it is always more advantageous to wait as long as possible to apply for retirement, but experts explain that it is not so.

It is necessary to take into account how much you stop earning from the moment you are already entitled to the benefit and do not request it from the INSS. In other words, how long does the additional payment amount to compensate for this period without receiving the benefit, says Rômulo Saraiva, a social security lawyer and columnist for Folha.

For example, a worker who waits a few more years for his benefit to have a smaller reducer and, during this period, no longer receives R$ 100 thousand in retirement. The wait represented an addition of BRL 300 per month (the values ​​in this example were used as a reference only). Dividing one by the other, it is possible to conclude that it would take 334 months, or just over 27 years, for the monthly increase to compensate for what was not received during the years of waiting. For this calculation, the insured would have to take into account the estimated duration of the benefit to see if the strategy pays off.

The calculations of the benefit amounts must be done with a specialized Social Security advisor that can check the documents and study the best retirement method for each person.

My INSS has a retirement simulator

Through Meu INSS, the worker can consult the calculator and simulate his retirement according to each rule, between the previous ones (if there is an acquired right) and those created by the reform. The tool informs which type of pension the insured is or is not entitled to, if he has already met the requirements, and simulates how much time it would take for him to be entitled to the others.

According to the specialist, it is necessary to check whether all periods are being considered in this calculation, as there may be errors in the Cnis (National Registry of Social Information) database.

There are common situations that hinder the use of the INSS calculator. Some examples are:

• periods in companies that withheld contributions (that is, did not pay the amounts to the government)
• additional amounts that have not been recorded properly, such as commissioned positions
• experiences abroad
• military service
• special activities, with exposure to insalubrity
• rural work