The Government next year will pay in wages and benefits for public employees 157% more than it did 12 years ago.
The payroll of public servants in 2018 will be almost triple, a payout of ¢4.3 billion colones, as compared to the ¢1.7 billion in 2006 (in today’s value).
In the same period, the economy grew 57%, a little more than a third of the increase in wages and benefits, while the increase in government revenue was 87%.
The shortfall is financed by debt.
According to figures from the Ministerio de Hacienda (Ministry of Finance, the effect of spending more than income each year has generated deficits in government finances from 1.2% in 2009 to 6.1% in 2017 and a projected 6.6% in 2018 (expressed as a percentage of GDP).
Alarming. Costa Rica is third among those countries in Latin America with growing public debt in the last 12 years (period 2006-2017), excluding Chile, whose deficits grew at a higher rate, but in very low amounts.
Source: LaRepublica.net
Who will pay this debt?
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