The economist assessed the initiative to pay the 13th pension before his birthday

“The idea is humane, but other low-income categories of people may be offended”

Deputy Speaker of the State Duma from the Liberal Democratic Party Boris Chernyshov introduced today, September 7, to the State Duma a bill on the payment of the 13th pension before the pensioner’s birthday. “MK” asked Georgiy Ostapkovich, a reputable economist and director of the Center for Market Research at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, to evaluate this initiative. How useful is this idea and how feasible is it?

The bill is aimed at providing pensioners with annual financial support in the form of payment of the 13th pension before the date of birth of the pension recipient, as stated in the explanatory note to the bill.

“One of the main holidays in the life of every person – his birthday – is no longer such for many pensioners. Organizing a festive table or event, a nice gift to yourself does not fit into the personal or family budget of this category of citizens,” Boris Chernyshov justified his initiative.

The bill proposes to provide pension payments to all categories of pensioners, working and non-working recipients of insurance pensions, state pensions and “military pensions”.

– On the one hand, the idea is humane, it would be a joyful event for people. We have a socially oriented state,” says Georgy Ostapkovich. – Let’s count. We have about 40 million pensioners, we take the average pension – approximately 20,000 rubles. (more precisely, 18,500 rubles). We multiply this amount by the number of pensioners and get 80 billion rubles. The question is, will the budget support this amount? But this should be decided by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. The budget for 2024 will be adopted in September. Let me remind you that we currently have a budget deficit of almost 3 trillion. rub.

Perhaps 80 billion rubles. – not such a large amount. Money may be found in the budget for these purposes. But, on the other hand, what will single mothers and disabled people say? And the students who still have a meager scholarship – less than 2,000 rubles?! And they should get started in life and boost the economy! Other low-income categories of people may be offended. Pensioners are far from the lowest income category. Of course, the pension is low, but at least they don’t have problems with payments, they can’t go bankrupt… If we’re going to solve this problem, then we need to solve it in a comprehensive manner.

And further. If we are to introduce such a 13th pension, then, in my opinion, it would be more appropriate to divide this amount into 12 months. Not for a birthday. Because it is difficult to administer. It is necessary to calculate when a person’s birthday is, and it is necessary to additionally add specialists to the staff of the social fund who will monitor this. That is, in my opinion, it is easier to raise the annual pension by one average monthly pension. It will be smarter.