The State Duma raised payments for one category of elderly Russians

Guardians of disabled great-grandchildren will receive 2,638 rubles more per month

At a plenary meeting of the State Duma on Wednesday, February 21, a law was adopted to increase the fixed payment to the old-age and disability insurance pension for one category of elderly Russians – great-grandparents who have dependent disabled great-grandchildren.

According to the adopted amendments to the current law “On Insurance Pensions,” fixed payments to the old-age insurance pension and to the disability insurance pension are increased for citizens in the status of great-grandparents, who are dependent on disabled great-grandchildren. In this case, dependent great-grandchildren must be either under the age of 18 years, or have already reached 18 years of age and have completed training in basic educational programs of general or secondary education, or are studying full-time in basic educational programs, but not longer than 23 years of age or older if they became disabled before the age of 18.

This law will allow great-grandparents who are guardians to receive an additional 2,638 rubles per month per child. The exact number of senior citizens who will be able to count on increased payments under this law is not named, but open sources contain quantitative estimates from 30 to 100 thousand people.

Economist Andrei Loboda, director of communications at BitRiver, believes that this bill was adopted as part of strengthening the state’s social policy, aimed at those categories of the population that receive assistance and thereby are removed from the blow of financial trouble.

“In general, a fair standard of living for citizens on a well-deserved retirement has remained a very pressing problem for more than two decades. There is progress here and it is very noticeable – in particular, in indexation and assistance to various categories of the elderly,” the expert emphasized.

Andrei Loboda noted that for several years now Russia has been effectively implementing targeted assistance to socially vulnerable categories of citizens, which include people with disabilities, and very often their elderly guardians.

According to our interlocutor, an increase in pension for this category of citizens, even for a small amount of just over 2.5 thousand rubles per month, is a very good and correct story. It is likely that it is this preferential category of deserving people, usually at the advanced age of 80 years and above, who will be the first to achieve monthly assistance from the state in the amount of 50 thousand rubles – this, according to Loboda, is the minimum fair level of pension for our citizens.