/ world today news/ The pension reform in Russia has failed. More than half of men simply do not live to see retirement. Now the age is 65, but experts did not rule out that the retirement age will be raised again in the coming years. What should be done so that people do not live from reform to reform, asks the Russian channel “Tsarigrad”?
When the French Senate announced in mid-March that the country’s retirement age would be raised from 62 to 64, people responded with protests and strikes. The French, who do not agree with the new pension reform, set fire to the town hall in the city of Bordeaux.
There are rallies in Paris. The protesters were joined by firefighters and police. People take to the streets with lit torches while chanting anti-reform phrases.
French President Emmanuel Macron claims to have his finger on the pulse, but the temperature in the country is rising by the day. Because of protests, King Charles III of England postponed his state visit to Paris. The Iranian Foreign Ministry called on the French authorities to listen to their people and stop the violence against the protesters.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, given the generosity of France to the armed forces of Ukraine, asked a very reasonable question in her Telegram channel:
“When will Macron start supplying weapons to French citizens to maintain the country’s democracy and sovereignty?” But there is still no answer.
Let’s go back to Russia. According to Oleg Apolikhin, the chief reproductive health specialist of the Ministry of Health, 52% of men in our country do not live to the age of 65. This means that more than half of them may simply not see their pensions. What to do in this case?
The host of “First Russian” Yury Pronko discussed the topic with experts Nikita Maslennikov and Alexey Lapushkin in the program “Tsarigrad. Main”.
The first results of the reform
Commenting on the interim results of Russia’s pension reform, political scientist and economist Nikita Maslennikov noted that at first glance, “everything seems to be fine.”
In 2022 people’s pensions increased by 14%, blocking inflation of 11.9% due to re-indexation by 10%. But if you dig deeper, it turns out that not everything is so simple.
He drew attention to two main indicators. The first of these is the replacement ratio of the ratio of the average pension to the average wage.
“We started a little below 40% of the minimum rate recommended by the International Labor Organization. According to the rating scale, this is a grade “three”. And now we have reached somewhere around 30%. That is, so stable, a classic “four”, explained the expert.
The second indicator is the volume of the annual transfer from the federal budget. According to Maslennikov, it used to be the Pension Fund of Russia, and now it is a unified social fund.
“At the beginning of the pension reform, it was several hundred billion. Now it is more than four trillion rubles a year. And these two indicators show that the state of the pension system as a whole is unsatisfactory,” said Maslennikov.
Working pensioners
There are 41.8 million pensioners in Russia. For 31 million of them, pensions are the only sustainable source of livelihood. In 2022 the number of working pensioners fell to 7.9 million.
According to Maslennikov, the lack of indexation of pensions for working pensioners in times of crisis becomes a serious motivation for leaving work.
“Despite the shortage in the labor market and the demand for so many elderly people who want and can work, they leave. Because their pension is on average 4.6 thousand rubles lower than that of non-working pensioners,” noted the interlocutor of Tsarigrad .
This creates contradictions between the state of the labor market and the employment prospects of future generations, he emphasized.
“As for the capital pension system, it is in such a deep frozen state, in a state of suspended animation. We must pay tribute to our financial authorities and the Central Bank – they are trying to revive it with various long-term financial instruments,” said Maslennikov .
According to him, from the point of view of how much money our citizens have invested in recent years in various accumulation systems, including voluntary, in the financial market and Russian financial instruments, the last option is the most attractive. Because there is more money.
“22.9 million people have opened brokerage accounts. This is actually comparable to all who were enrolled in the mandatory capital system, six percent. We are already close to that figure. But the question arises. Here we will develop the capital system including But will there be demand? It’s not a fact,” Maslennikov said.
He emphasized that there are too many details and no understanding of what tax benefits each citizen and their employer will receive if an entire industry of corporate pension systems is created.
From reform to reform
Pension reform in Russia has failed, says Alexey Lapushkin, economist and secretary of the Federal Council of the Party of Affairs. For comparison, he cited data for 2018. and 2022
“The average pension in 2018 was 14,144 rubles. The average pension in 2022 was 20,864 rubles. Accordingly, in four years, the average pension increased by 47.5%. At the same time, inflation for the same period was 34%. Vol. “actually, the pension has increased by 13.5%,” he explained.
“But as a result of the new pension reform, two million people lost their pensions. Because, as we have already mentioned, 52% of men in the Russian Federation simply do not live to retirement age,” emphasized Lapushkin.
“To say that the pension reform has failed is to say nothing. Completely out. Here, I am 45 years old. Basically, I do not count on this pension. Because this pension reform will be followed by the next pension reform” , Lapushkin summarized.
He added that until Russia changes the economic paradigm in which we live, it will continue from reform to reform.
Translation: SM
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