The Accounts Chamber recognized social contracts as an effective tool to reduce poverty in the Russian Federation

The Accounts Chamber recognized social contracts as an effective tool to reduce poverty in the Russian Federation



According to the auditors of the Accounts Chamber, in 2021–2022, social contracts proved to be a popular tool to reduce poverty in the Russian Federation. In two years, 1.8 million people were covered by them - most of them entered into for the sake of help in finding work. On average, social contracts lift 24% of their participants out of poverty, which is probably a noticeable effect for combating stagnant poverty with limited payments. According to the auditors, the government could increase budget spending on this support measure, but first the Ministry of Labor wants to unify the rules for its use.

The Accounts Chamber recognized social contracts as an effective tool for reducing poverty in the Russian Federation. This conclusion is contained in the report of the auditors “Analysis of the effectiveness of the provision of state social assistance in 2021 and 2022 on the basis of a social contract in terms of reducing poverty”, which Kommersant has read. However, according to the department, the further use of social contracts will require a new increase in federal spending.

The social contract is one of the instruments of state assistance to the poor; it has been actively used in recent years by regional authorities. It allows families with incomes below the established threshold to conclude agreements with the social security authority, under which citizens receive the agreed payments, subject to certain actions to improve their financial situation. So, a social contract can be concluded for running a subsidiary farm, starting a business, finding a job or getting out of a difficult life situation - you can get from 30 thousand to 250 thousand rubles for this. In 2021-2022, budgets of all levels spent more than 62 billion rubles on financing social contracts, most of these funds came in the form of subsidies from the federal budget to the regions.

As the auditors calculated, in two years the regional authorities concluded more than 558 thousand social contracts with poor Russians (an average of 55.5 thousand rubles per agreement), which made it possible to provide assistance to 1.8 million people (including families). The largest share of social contracts (220,000 or 39%) was entered into by Russians to look for work. After three months, 89% of applicants continued to work, 60% - in the same place. In the two years after the conclusion of the social contract, incomes increased on average for 66% of poor citizens, and in slightly more than a quarter of cases (28%), the average per capita income of a family exceeded the subsistence level in the region.

In second place in popularity was a social contract for starting a business (156,000 social contracts, or 28%). As a result, 71% of its users had an increase in income, in 37% of cases, the average per capita family income exceeded the regional subsistence level. In third place are social contracts for getting out of a difficult life situation (125 thousand, 22%). On average, almost half of the recipients of payments under them (52.5%) increased their family income, and 22.5% had their average per capita family income also exceed the subsistence level.

The conclusion of social contracts, the auditors say, allowed the regions where they were actively used to reduce the level of poverty below the federal level. In general, according to their calculations, 24% of those who have signed a social contract overcome the poverty line. The result does not look very ambitious, but it is mainly about the fight against stagnant poverty, which is most difficult to overcome due to social and geographical reasons, and against this background, one-time government investments of relatively small amounts look quite productive. However, it is still impossible to assess the contribution of social contracts to the reduction of poverty in the Russian Federation as a whole - this indicator, we recall, at the end of 2022 decreased to 9.8% for the first time since 1992, and the main reason for its reduction, according to the Ministry of Labor and industry experts, - payments to poor families with children (for more details, see Kommersant of March 11). In the future, the auditors noted, it makes sense for the government to increase the amount of spending on social contracts, as well as to revise the methodology for their distribution by region, since some of them requested funds in excess of the allocated funds in 2022.

However, while the Ministry of Labor sees the further development of the practice of social contracts rather in the systematization of requirements for their recipients: earlier, the department proposed to unify the approach to concluding social contracts and make it similar to the means test procedure when calculating payments for children from three to seven years old (for more details, see “Kommersant” dated 6 June). In addition, as Olga Batalina, deputy head of the department, noted, the department plans to optimize monitoring of the effectiveness of this practice.

Anastasia Manuylova



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