However, Portugal slightly overspent according to both criteria. One of the drawbacks of focusing on this measure is that the ratio may increase as a result of a decline in GDP alone and not because of an increase in social security payments per se. As a complement to the previous analysis, Figure 1.14 examines the 2007-09 change in the absolute level of general government expenditures in real terms.34 It disaggregates the change in general government expenditures into two components: general government social security benefits and general government expenditures other then social security benefits.