Lukashenka Counters Pensioners

Is one able to survive on a pension of 224 rubles?

Belarus has considerably increased the number of those who receive the minimum labor pension. Over the past 6 years, their number has increased by almost 5 times, tut.by writes referring to the magazine Finance, Accounting, Audit of the Ministry of Finance. At that, the number of those, who get social pensions, increases in Belarus as well.

"Conspicuous is the fact that the number of citizens of retirement age, receiving a retirement pension in the minimum size (in June it amounted to 224 rubles, or about 70% of the average old-age pension) has increased sharply in recent years," – the magazine notes.

If in 2010, there were 42,000 people, in 2016 – 200 thousand, or about 10% of all old-age pensioners. This figure is almost comparable to the level of 2000, when there were about 260 000 (13%) such people. But by 2010 their number had decreased by six times.

"Today, the old-age pension size is influenced by two factors: the length of service and the size of the individual's income from which contributions are paid into the Social Security Fund. At that, some economic entities, in order to minimize their expenses, pay the contributions in keeping with the minimum wage," – the magazine writes.

In particular, according to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, it concerns about 95% of all the individual entrepreneurs. And therefore such a category of citizens should rely only on the minimum pension, experts underline.

"Slowly and surely, the number of social pension recipients is growing. According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, at the beginning of this year, there were 63 thousand such people, having increased in comparison with 2010 by 10 thousand, or almost 20%. The social pension size, depending on the category of its recipients, is 50% of the subsistence rate (for citizens who are not granted the right to age labor pension) and 110% (for the disabled of the first group and disabled children having the fourth degree of loss of health)," – the magazine Finance, Accounting, Audit notes.

We remind that due to the "insurance experience trap," a lot of Belarusians have been left without pensions.