Sick leave and “maternity” in the new territories will be paid with “features”

A draft law has been submitted to the State Duma that defines the specifics of payment for sick leaves, payments in connection with maternity and in connection with disability as a result of work-related injuries for those who live in the territory of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions or previously lived there, but then left to “other subjects of the Russian Federation”. Additional expenses will be financed, apparently, from the federal budget. The calculations are very approximate: on the so-called. new territories are active hostilities, many documents have been lost.

“Social” bills, which should approve temporary special rules for the payment of pensions and various kinds of social benefits for former and current residents of the lands annexed to Russia last fall, must be adopted by parliament and signed by the president before the end of February: their entry into force is March 1, 2023 of the year.

The bill that is about benefits for temporary disability, for pregnancy and childbirth, for caring for a child up to the age of one and a half years and for caring for a sick child, for burial, as well as about guarantees of benefits and payments to those who have lost their ability to work due to work injury or occupational disease is one of them. The first lines of the document submitted to the State Duma say that from March 1, 2023 and henceforth, residents of four new constituent entities of the Russian Federation and those who left there for other, safer regions of Russia, are entitled to payments “in the manner, size, volume and on terms ”, which are registered and valid for all Russians. But – “taking into account the peculiarities” associated, among other things, with the fact that the social insurance systems in Ukraine and Russia are different.

Let’s try to figure out what this means, using the example of the most common types of benefits (for temporary disability, for pregnancy and child care), which were previously paid in Russia from the Social Insurance Fund, and from January 1 are paid from the unified Pension and Social Insurance Fund: its territorial bodies in the new constituent entities of the Russian Federation have already been created, they are able to collect insurance premiums and pay the required benefits, assures the explanatory note to the initiative …

According to the all-Russian rules, the amount of the sick leave payment (the first three days at the expense of the employer, then from the fund, where employers pay insurance premiums for each employee) depends on two factors: the length of service and the average earnings for the two calendar years preceding the illness. But in any case, you won’t get more than 83,204 rubles a month: this is the maximum payment due to disability in 2023. Only those whose insurance experience is 8 or more years and whose salary is equal to or exceeds this amount can count on it. With an experience of 5 to 8 years, the maximum payment can be 66,564 rubles per month, with an experience of up to five years – 49,923 rubles per month. The minimum allowance (for those who have no experience, or the salary is very small) is equal to the minimum wage: 16,242 rubles per month.

As for the so-called. “maternity payments”, that is, benefits for pregnancy and childbirth – they also depend on earnings for the previous two years, but cannot be more than 83,204 rubles per month. And the maximum amount of the monthly allowance for caring for a child up to one and a half years (40% of average earnings), in turn, from February 1 will be 33,282 rubles per month, the minimum – 8,630 rubles per month (now this allowance is about 11% less) . If there are several children under the age of one and a half in a family, care allowance is paid for each, and the father, grandparents, and guardian can receive it.

What can residents of the so-called. new territories – and those who fled from there from hostilities to other regions of the country, including?

Separately, it is stipulated that citizens of the DPR and LPR who began to get sick or went on maternity leave before March 1, 2023 and received payments in accordance with the legislation of these republics “have the right” to receive payments from March 1 already according to Russian rules. But if, according to the rules of the DPR and LPR, they received more, “the allowance is paid in the same amount” until the end of the period for which it was assigned. If residents of the annexed regions received some payments that are not provided for by Russian laws at all (the explanatory note refers, in particular, to benefits for pupils, students, disabled children who received harm as a fetus due to an injury at work or an occupational disease of a woman during during pregnancy) – they will also be preserved for the time being.

Moreover, if in Russia as a whole they have already switched to the appointment and payment of benefits for sickness, as well as for pregnancy and childbirth on the basis of an electronic sick leave, then in the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, “sick leave” is allowed on paper until the end of 2025. There is a stock of such documents in Russia, enough, the explanatory note reads.

The amount of benefits for sickness and childbirth, it seems, will also depend on the length of service and the amount of earnings. But…

Residents of the DPR and LPR, who were insured in the system of compulsory state social insurance operating in the territory of these republics, will take into account all the experience accumulated before joining Russia. And residents of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions – only the length of service under an employment contract and filling state and municipal positions “in the period from September 30, 2022 to March 1, 2023” (September 30 is considered the date these lands became part of the Russian Federation). Not all citizens who lived and live there can document the fact of having a length of service before January 1, 2023 (documents may be lost or simply not available as a result of hostilities) – this means that you will have to write an application to the territorial division of the Social Fund, and receive a “go-ahead” from a special interdepartmental commission for the implementation of labor, pension and social rights of citizens, created by government decree. But the length of service, as follows from the text of the bill, will only be of relative importance in determining the amount of the payment.

The amount of benefits for sick leave, and for pregnancy and childbirth, and for child care will be calculated based on the average daily earnings only for the period from September 30, 2022 to January 1, 2023. Ukrainian hryvnias will be converted into rubles at the exchange rate of the Central Bank on September 30 last year (then for 10 hryvnias in Russia they gave 15,545 rubles). In 2024, the calculation of average earnings and the amount of benefits, respectively, will be based on the amount received from September 30, 2022 to December 2023. It is specially stipulated: the maximum amount of the average daily earnings taken into account when calculating the payment cannot exceed 2,736.99 rubles. If we multiply this amount by 30 or 31, by the number of days in a month, we will get the same 83,204 rubles per month, the maximum amount of payments in Russia as a whole.

What the residents of the DNR and LNR had to pay before March 1, 2023, but for some reason they didn’t pay, will be paid.

The financial and economic justification for the bill states that the adoption of the law “will require additional budget expenditures” for this fund. To what extent? The document contains some calculations, but it is impossible to assess the degree of their correctness. For example, it is said that about 356 thousand people in the DPR, 243 thousand in the LPR, 272 thousand in the Zaporozhye region and 166 thousand – in the Kherson region, and this will require about 17 billion rubles in 2023. At the same time, it will be possible to collect insurance premiums from employees by about 6.2 billion rubles. As for insurance payments against accidents at work and in connection with occupational diseases (everything here is generally calculated “estimated”, the document warns) – about 16.3 billion rubles will be required, and only about 1.5 billion will be able to collect contributions from employers .rubles This means that the shortage (more than 25 billion rubles) will apparently have to be covered from the federal budget.

Government representatives and parliamentarians, when adopting the country’s budget for 2023-25 ​​last autumn, assured that all social obligations to the residents of the new four constituent entities of the Russian Federation would be fulfilled in full, and funds for these purposes were provided. But where exactly, in what section of the federal budget this money is, and in what volume – is not known to the general public.