Brazil's INSS queue falls to 1.8 million, lowest level in 21 months

The Instituto Nacional do Seguro Social (INSS) reported that the backlog of benefit requests stood at 1.8 million at the end of June, the smallest total in the past 21 months. Of these requests, 825 000 are under 45 days old, 555 000 have exceeded 45 days, and 451 000 await further documentation from claimants. The agency averages 700 000 benefit grants per month and recorded a historic peak of 890 000 approvals in March. The average processing time is now 50 days. Director of Benefits Leonardo Bittencourt attributed the improvement to a set of measures: prioritising the Benefit Management Programme (PGB) and cutting its internal deadline from 45 to 30 days, expanding mobile “mutirão” teams for social assessments and medical exams, hiring 300 new social‑security analysts and 500 federal medical examiners, expanding tele‑medicine‑based examinations, and using the Atestmed system to evaluate medical certificates digitally. Complaints to the INSS Ombudsman fell 44 percent, from 14 491 to 8 047 between January and May. The government has also set a target to eliminate all requests pending more than 45 days by September, reinforcing staffing and monitoring to keep the flow within the legal deadline.