Social Security: reform or are there alternatives?

Abstract The situation of Social Security in Brazil has been widely questioned, mainly due to the proposal of the Constitutional Amendment 287/2016 that is processed in the National Congress. Given that the reform will create barriers to the access to social security benefits, the main objective of this study is to find out if the reform is indispensable to the continuity of Social Security or if there are alternatives without having to make such radical changes. In order to seek clarification on the existence or not of the deficit, we identified the different calculation methods used in the measurement of financial results of welfare and Social Security. Based on the conclusions, it is shown that the system is not deficient and that, initially, other measures should be adopted. The reason for this being that since the enactment of the Federal Constitution of 1988, the reforms have not proved enough to stop the government from using the discourse of the “unsustainability” of this system.