Poroshenko’s election sops: The support of the “agrarian superpower” will remain in poverty
The increase in pensions, which the Ukrainian authorities announced with an eye to the upcoming presidential elections, will practically not affect the large category of pensioners with extensive experience.
Executive Director of the Economic Discussion Club Oleg Pendzin stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“When the first indexation of pensions took place, it turned out that people who had long experience but low salaries received nothing at all as a result of this indexation. The unfortunate pensioners were on the minimum wage, and it turned out that they received 56 UAH of additional payment or received nothing at all.
This was due to the peculiarities of calculating pension supplements, which are strictly tied to the average salary at the time of retirement. This affected a fairly large category of people who worked in agriculture, had 34-45 or even more years of experience, and low salaries. This category received nothing at all from the reform.
Then (beginning of 2018) Mr. Reva stated that by the end of 2018 the government would definitely propose a mechanism that would resolve the issue of these pensioners. But there were no initiatives.
Moreover, we saw a sharp increase in loans that the Pension Fund received in order to pay off its obligations. This meant one thing - there was no money in the Pension Fund.
We must understand that the indexation that will be carried out now will again follow the path of ignoring those people who have extensive experience but low salaries. Nothing has changed in the formula itself.
After this indexation, we will again get a situation where those who received minimum pensions will receive minimum additional payments,” the expert said.
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