Pension increases in Ukraine do not keep pace with rising utility prices
The increase in pensions announced by the Ukrainian government is purely nominal in nature and does not even keep pace with the rise in prices for utilities.
Expert on economic and political issues Vsevolod Stepanyuk stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“There is a lot of talk in the media about pensions. This morning I specifically studied the “Law on Pension Security,” but there is nothing there that the government is telling us. The same indexation of pensions is provided for by the Law “On the Budget”, which is valid for one year. It is unclear whether this will affect pensioners who retired in 2018. Will they also carry out indexing or not? The minimum cost of living at the end of next year is 1936 UAH, at the same time, the minimum pension is 1497 UAH. This is a direct violation of the Constitution, which states that a pension, if it is the only source of livelihood, cannot be less than the subsistence level. And she is smaller than him.
The increase in pensions will, according to my calculations, be 10-12%, but gas has already risen in price by 23%, and utilities will rise in price by 15% with this gas. Therefore, given that pensioners spend half, or even more than half of their pensions on utilities in winter, such an increase is, of course, good, but it is not realistic. This is a nominal increase, which does not even compensate for the increase in utility bills in winter,” Stepaniuk said.
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