Economist Grigorieva: in December, Russian pensioners will receive payments for January 2022
Photo: Nikolay Gyngazov / Global Look Press
Pensioners who receive payments on the first day of each month through the Russian Post offices will receive large payments in December – because of the upcoming New Year holidays, they will receive money for January 2022, said Elena Grigorieva, deputy dean of the RUDN University Faculty of Economics, in an interview with the Prime agency.
There is no single pension payment schedule. In different regions, pensions are transferred to banks and post offices in different ways. Information on the timing of payments can be found by calling the contact numbers of regional FIUs
Elena GrigorievaDeputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics, RUDN
According to Grigorieva, the January old-age insurance pension will be received taking into account indexation.
Payouts
The specialist recalled that in December, fixed payments to insurance pensions were indexed for people who turned 80 years old, as well as for citizens who finished their labor activity three months ago. All these payments will be made in the same way in December.
In addition, Grigorieva said that, according to unconfirmed information, the issue of an additional one-time payment in connection with the budget surplus is being discussed. However, the State Duma deputies have not yet considered this issue, so it is difficult to say whether there will be such a payment, not to mention its size, she stressed.
President's promise
On December 23, during a large press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin answered a question about plans to index pensions above the level of actual inflation. He stated that the government will do everything to fulfill the promises of the past years. The head of state stressed that so far the authorities have generally succeeded in this. Putin assured that next year decisions will be made on pensions for the security bloc in order to equalize the incomes of those who work in law enforcement agencies and in security agencies in general.
Later, the deputy head of the social committee of the Federation Council, Elena Bibikova, said that there is money in the budget for the indexation of pensions, since the president announced this, and the procedure and mechanisms of indexation, based on the level of inflation, will be determined by the government.
The senator explained that they are now expecting to determine the inflation rate at the end of the year. According to her, this decision can be formalized in a bill, in which case the senators are ready to promptly consider it. At the same time, the government can take this by its own decree, she said. Bibikova explained that this will be some kind of compensation, taking into account the real growth of inflation, which exceeds the previously laid down indicators in the budget.
Rules for receiving pensions in 2022
In 2022, women from 56.5 years old and men from 61.5 years old will have the right to an insurance pension, said Marina Tarasova, deputy manager of the PFR branch in Moscow and the Moscow region.
She explained that in order to receive an old-age pension, one must not only reach the specified age, but also have the required length of service and a certain amount of the individual pension coefficient, which depends on the amount of insurance contributions paid by the employer for the employee.
This year, these indicators are 12 and 21 years, respectively, next year their minimum size will be 13 and 23.4 years. By the time the pension reform is completed, the length of service for retirement must be at least 15 years, and the individual pension coefficient must be 30.
If the experience and coefficient are not enough, then the pension will be postponed for the period necessary to comply with all the conditions. If it is not possible to achieve them within five years, then the citizen will be assigned a social pension, added Tarasova.
Freezing
On December 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law extending the freeze of the funded part of pensions until 2024. The extension of the freeze period will help reduce the transfer from the country's budget to the Pension Fund budget by 772.9 billion rubles.
The decision to transfer contributions to the funded part of the pension (6 percent of salary) for payments to current pensioners was made in 2014. Then it was argued that the initiative was temporary, but since then the freeze has been extended. Prior to that, Russians could independently decide whether to direct money to form savings or transfer to the insurance part.
Svetlana Bessarab, a member of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, named the reasons why the funded part of pensions had to be frozen. According to her, the system of non-state pension funds (NPF) at that moment turned out to be imperfect, and the state was not ready for the outbreak of the war of funds. Therefore, it was necessary to keep funds in the compulsory pension insurance system.
Proposals for new payments
Earlier, the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs developed an initiative to pay the New Year's pension to Russians annually. The authors of the initiative proposed to establish a payment in the amount of the pension received by the Russians on the date of the provision of this pension payment to them. The reason for this in the explanatory note was inflation, which negatively affects the income of pensioners, as well as the desire of Russians to spend a large amount of funds on New Year's Eve on gifts and organizing the holiday.
Labor and Social Protection Minister Anton Kotyakov, commenting on this proposal of the deputies, said that “there are no such discussions, I did not have such information.”
Later, the deputy of the State Council of Tatarstan Eduard Sharafiev made a proposal to introduce monthly payments to “children of the Second World War”. According to him, he is finalizing a new project, which he plans to submit to the State Duma in February 2022. According to his proposal, Russian pensioners born in the period from June 22, 1928 to May 9, 1945, will be entitled to monthly payments in the amount of at least 30 percent of the subsistence minimum in the country, but not less than three thousand rubles a month.
