ABSTRACT

An effective social assistance system needs to be sustainable and affordable and needs to provide good coverage and adequate benefits. The authors’ model to forecast the cost of the South African social assistance system to 2040 provides insights into key cost drivers. This allows policy-makers to explore the effects of policy levers like benefit levels and coverage. Using assumptions derived from analysis of past experience, the model projects that the cost of grants as a percentage of GDP is expected to remain stable. However, this result is very sensitive to GDP forecasts, coverage, grant increases and changes to the retirement age. The following factors are less significant: changes to age-eligibility requirements for child benefits, proportions of benefits paid, expense inflation and population model.

摘要

一个有效的社会援助系统需要是可持续的和负担得起的，并且需要提供良好的覆盖面和足够的福利。作者预测南非社会援助系统到 2040 年的成本的模型提供了对关键成本驱动因素的见解。这使政策制定者能够探索福利水平和覆盖范围等政策杠杆的影响。使用从过去经验分析得出的假设，该模型预测赠款成本占 GDP 的百分比预计将保持稳定。然而，这一结果对 GDP 预测、覆盖范围、补助金增加和退休年龄变化非常敏感。以下因素不太重要：儿童福利的年龄资格要求的变化、支付的福利比例、费用通胀和人口模型。