Disability compensation welfare: benefit or harm?

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of data related to the evolution observed in the amount of benefits paid from 1977 to 1986 by the National Institute of Social Security (Instituto Nacional de Previdência Social, INPS). It particularly emphasizes the aid in case of sickness and stresses the significant decrease in the payments of such aid, notwithstanding the substantial increase in the number of persons covered by social security programs.

The phenomenon is ascribed to an effective rationalization of technical and managerial procedures during the administrative stages prior to the concession itself. This rationalization noticeably started with the financial crisis faced since 1982 by the whole welfare and social security system.

The study ends by offering the hypothesis that political pressures aiming at a real restraint on expenditures lead to a particular type of organizational culture that alienates not only the officials as concerns the social function they are expected to perform, but also the insured beneficiaries, who are left without an aid they are rightfully entitled to receive.