The State Duma figured out how to force Russians to give birth

Parliamentarians offer to help all large families, not just the poor

Deputies of the State Duma are trying to completely untie measures to support large families from poverty criteria. “Parents with many children should not run around with certificates and prove that they need something,” said Alexei Kurinny, a member of the Communist Party faction, at a meeting of the working group of the expert council of the Duma Committee on Family, Motherhood and Childhood. In an attempt to convince the Cabinet of Ministers that everyone, and not just low-income families, should receive state support, the parliamentarians even clashed with the Ministry of Labor.

“We have no illusions that everyone will immediately rush to give birth. But families should understand that the state will provide them with at least a basic standard of living,” the deputy stressed. Alexey Kurinny.

Back in September, Duma members submitted to the lower house a draft law “On the fundamentals of the legal status of large families in the Russian Federation.” While the document is hanging at the level of the Committee on Family Affairs.

The main idea of ​​the Duma members – to separate the concepts of having many children and neediness in different angles – turned out to be the main stumbling block for the Cabinet. Parliamentarians complain that the Ministry of Labor advocates targeting. This is the principle that privileges, subsidies and allowances are given only to the poor. As it turned out, for families with many children, this approach is fatal: married couples prefer to file divorces (suppose that some of them are fictitious). Benefits for single mothers, many of whom, as a result of such a knight’s move, end up among the poor, are higher than for complete families. The deputies insist that large families and poverty should not be on the same line at all. Even Vladimir Putin, in his messages, has repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that the fight against poverty and the increase in the birth rate are completely different goals for the state, although they are equally important. The idea of ​​the parliamentarians found support in the Accounts Chamber:

— Measures of state support must be extended to the entire population. We must stimulate the birth rate in all families. We don’t want this to happen only to the poor. A prosperous, wealthy family should understand that it is under the attention and care of the state, – said the director of the department of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation Olga Samarina.

The draft law of the Duma members turned out to be revolutionary in a sense. The document, written by Gennady Zyuganov, Nina Ostanina, Alexei Kurinny and a team of co-authors from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, fixes: a large family is three children or more. And then, as they say, watch your hands. The document contains an inconspicuous but fundamental innovation. Duma members with many children propose to consider a family exactly until the youngest child turns 18. The deputies emphasize that such an approach radically changes the approach to such families. Now the household is removed from state support measures when the eldest offspring becomes an adult.

Moreover, the authors of the bill propose to extend the status of large families for families in which at least one child studies full-time at a university, until the youngest son or daughter reaches 23 years old. As the head of the Committee on Family Affairs noted Nina Ostanina, large families in Russia, according to statistics, now 2 million 170 thousand. If the bill is passed, there will be even more such families in the country.

There are many options for helping those with many children in the document. Here is a monthly payment for children, and an annual payment for the purchase of clothes in the amount of 20% of the average salary in the region. Plus monthly compensation for housing and communal services: 50% of the bill for families with three children, 70% for those with four to seven offspring, and 100% if there are eight or more children.

The largest amount – 1 million rubles – is expected to be paid to families to cover mortgages and other options for solving housing problems. But here the Accounts Chamber has already inserted its remark:

– We propose to give a million at the birth of the fourth child. Three children will not solve the problem of reproduction,” Olga Samarina said and added that she does not consider the recent decision to pay the mother’s capital at the birth of her first child to be correct. According to Samarina, this nullified all attempts to support the birth rate.

The expert community is trying to add many more innovations to the bill. Among these are lowering the retirement age for large families to 52 for women and 60 for men, as well as securing a special status for pregnant women and families with three children under the age of three. Chairman of the Patriarchal Commission on Family Affairs, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood Fedor Lukyanov considers it necessary to equate future mothers with workers and count the decree as insurance experience. For families that cannot arrange a baby in a nursery, the expert suggested issuing a cash certificate for a nanny. Another idea is to allow pregnant women in the second or third trimester to use the services of social workers.

– It can be difficult for pregnant women to wash the floors, go to the store or pharmacy. Especially for those of them who do not have grandparents,” Fedor Lukyanov emphasized.

While the bill is at the stage of fine-tuning before the first reading, the deputies and experts have one wish – no targeting and no link to poverty. Judging by the mood in the ranks of Nina Ostanina’s committee, pushing this idea through the Cabinet will not be so easy.

“Who are our allies in the government? Are there normal people everywhere? – flashed through the walls of the expert council, but so far it has remained unanswered.