Working pensioners equated to beneficiaries

The state explained why it is categorically impossible to index pensions for working pensioners. The argument boils down to three arguments: firstly, the measure will lead to a reduction in payments to other pensioners, secondly, a gap of half a trillion rubles will appear in the treasury, and finally, Russians from the category in question receive a salary. Accordingly, a pension for them is a benefit. Meanwhile, all this reinforced concrete logical structure does not fit well with the legislation and the concept of “social justice”.

“In connection with the additional indexation of insurance pensions by 10% from June 1, 2022, the volume of additional need for federal budget funds for indexation of pensions (with additional indexation for the previous periods) of working pensioners in 2022, taking into account delivery costs, would amount to 498.7 billion rubles,” says Natalya Petrova, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Pension Fund of Russia (PFR), to the Russian Tripartite Commission for the Regulation of Social and Labor Relations.

The official recalled that the intended purpose of pensions is to provide a livelihood for those who have lost their ability to work due to old age or disability. And indexation, in turn, is designed to compensate for inflationary costs.

“Since working pensioners have a source of income to cover these costs in the form of wages, the insurance pension established by them is paid without compensation,” Petrova explains. In addition, she refers to federal law No. 400-FZ, which “contains a benefit for the payment of insurance pensions to all categories of working pensioners, despite the fact that they continue to receive earnings.”

It is appropriate to recall that in August a group of deputies submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing to resume (frozen in 2016) indexation of pensions for working pensioners from January 1, 2023, by recalculating. The authors determined the amount of additional budget allocations at 538 billion rubles. Of course, the government did not approve of the idea. Meanwhile, in the third quarter of 2022, the number of working pensioners in the country sharply decreased: for the period from July 1 to October 1 – by 413.6 thousand, to 8.1 million people (to a minimum since 2004). The reason could be the unscheduled indexation of insurance pensions by 10% in June, which prompted some citizens from this social category to change their status.

“The justification of the PFR outwardly looks absolutely illiterate, or it contains a fair amount of cunning,” says Pavel Kudyukin, a member of the Council of the Russian Confederation of Labor. – The labor pension in Russia is of an insurance nature. Any citizen, having gained a certain number of pension points and entered the appropriate age, fully deserved both the pension itself and indexation. It does not matter whether a person is currently working or not: we are talking about his legally earned money over the years of work. As for the required amount of 500 billion rubles, then, firstly, it is not so large on the scale of the entire budget, and secondly, the PFR is subsidized in one way or another from the federal treasury.

In addition, the definition of “benefit” in this case is inappropriate, notes Kudyukin: if a person has not worked a day, and the state pays him a social pension so that he does not live in poverty, then yes, this can be considered as a benefit.

“Insurance contributions to the Pension Fund also come from the salaries of working pensioners,” recalls Sergey Smirnov, a leading researcher at INION RAS. – And in August they recalculate pensions for a maximum of three points. That is, 250 rubles at most. The Pension Fund’s argument is fundamentally wrong. Then let’s change the legislation and clearly state there that pensions for working pensioners are not indexed. Yes, representatives of the PFR can be understood: the economy is not in the best condition, in August, in annual terms, real wages fell by 1.3%, respectively, the budget of the Pension Fund is filled worse. This clearly requires additional transfers from the state treasury, which today has somewhat different priorities. From the point of view of internal logic, the officials are right, but the argument needs to be chosen completely differently.”

It turns out that people are to blame for the fact that they receive wages. Absolutely anti-social approach! Of course, someone (first of all, representatives of creative professions, scientists, teachers) works on a whim, for the sake of “pure art”. But the bulk of pensions are compensated by the force of 30% of lost earnings, so you have to stay in hard work, literally for the sake of survival, Smirnov argues.

“According to the amendments that were adopted a little more than two years ago, in our Constitution there is no distinction between working and non-working pensioners,” notes Igor Nikolaev, chief researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. – I would like the FIU to not forget about it. And a pension is not a benefit, but money honestly earned by a person, in accordance with the law.”