Kremlin vs. Citizens: 2003-2023 - Minimum pension's growth from 65 to 120 euros
Half the population (or more) of the richest country in the world lives in extreme poverty as the world queues to do business with predators- oligarchs
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Leggere la pagina in Italiano: Kremlin vs. Citizens: 2003-2023 - Crescita della pensione minima da 65 a 120 euro al mese
Prologue
Pensioners have a bad time: meager pensions doom them to a miserable existence or to dependence on the material support of other family members. The nomenklatura used the workforce of pensioners; it no longer needs them.
It is true that urban transport is cheap in the USSR, but cars are declared a luxury item: a Volga car costs 16,000 rubles, and a comparable Volkswagen Golf costs 18,000 German marks. This means that a worker or employee in Germany (their average salary is 3,500 marks) can buy such a car with his salary in less than 5.5 months, and a Soviet worker - in more than 5 years of work. The same Zhiguli car (in export version - Lada) is sold in the USSR for 9,600 rubles, and in the West for 1,000 marks. This means that they must save their entire salary to buy this car: a Soviet worker - 37 months, and a West German worker - 3.5 months? West German - yes. But the Soviet one will need much more time: buying a Zhiguli by signing up for one is an unrealistic thing. This means you need to buy it on the market, at a price of 40–50 thousand rubles. Accordingly, you will have to save for 13–16 years.
It is true that bread, pasta, potatoes, milk, vegetables, corn and some other simple food products are cheap in the USSR. But meat, fish, poultry, fruits, chocolate, coffee, confectionery - all this is either expensive or a scarce commodity. Since people don’t want to eat pasta with bread and fill up on potatoes, approximately 80% of the average Soviet family’s budget is spent on food. In Germany, a person spends 20–25% of his salary on food.
It is true that medical care is free in the USSR. However, clinics and hospitals for the ordinary population are overcrowded, and people have to wait in line for hours to see a doctor. Doctors in clinics have a strict time limit for seeing a patient, and approximately half of this time is spent on making notes in the medical history. And in general, you need to understand: for the working population under real socialism, as under any other system, nothing is and cannot be free. After all, neither the state nor the nomenklatura themselves sow, reap, or stand at the machine.
All material goods in the USSR are produced by workers and only by them. The nomenklatura, through its state machine, only distributes these benefits, and the meaning of the distribution is that the nomenklatura class pays the lion's share for its needs. That is why, under the conditions of real socialism, it is indeed possible for a person to have a 100-meter apartment - and even with a country house - for an insignificant fee; you can easily buy a car, or even better, get it for free and even with a driver; have excellent and cheap food and feed your family, use good clinics and hospitals for free, and relax every year in a sanatorium for free. All this is possible in the USSR. Only for this you need to become a member of the nomenclature class.
For direct producers, the nomenclature clearly outlined the range of their material capabilities: 12 sq. meters of living space per person; simple food; cheap travel on public transport to and from work; cheap newspapers and other propaganda literature, and for the intelligentsia - cheap legal books, so that in their free time they can read instructive things and not think about it; if you get sick, get medical help so you can go back to work sooner; a small old-age and disability pension (the limit for most is 120 rubles); 20 rubles allowance for funeral.
That's all. We are not talking about this here to put what is described in an unsightly light. On the contrary, it deserves recognition that the regime, which, as Stalin’s experience showed, is capable of driving entire peoples and classes into concentration camps, does not do this. There are countries in the third world where what is described is probably tempting. But there is no reason to proclaim all this as grandiose socialist achievements.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Voslensky, Nomenklatura, the Soviet ruling class, 1984
Translation of the 3 texts
The Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) is the oldest human rights organization in Russia created on May 12, 1976.
The organizer and first leader of the MHG was physical scientist Yuri Orlov. Immediately after the birth of the MHG, its participants were subjected to pressure from the KGB and party structures.
At the end of 1981, only three MHG members remained free in the USSR. On September 6, 1982, the group's members announced the cessation of MHG activities due to increasing repression. In 1989 the group resumed its work. Larisa Bogoraz became president of the MHG.
In May 1996, the group was led by Lyudmila Alekseyeva, who returned from emigration in 1993, and she remained its president until the end of her life (2018).
On December 19, 2022, the Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit for the liquidation of the Moscow Helsinki Group. On January 25, 2023, the Moscow City Court satisfied the requests of the Russian Ministry of Justice and decided to liquidate the Moscow Helsinki Group.
#Moscow Helsinki Group
#Larisa Bogoraz
#Lyudmila Alekseyeva
Full translation of the first text:
Потом будет поздно
| Eleonora Golovina | Chronicle Moscow Helsinki Group - Letters of the readers | №8 (104), 2003 |
Then it will be too late
Dear colleagues!
I, as well as pensioners from Yekaterinburg, Syktyvkar, St. Petersburg, Volgodonsk, have the determination to challenge the laws according to which Russian citizens (with the exception of the top bureaucrats and deputies of the State Duma, who created a separate pension system for themselves), including highly qualified workers , who were highly paid for 30–40 years, receive miserable pensions.
So, my pension in August 2003 is $65 per month.
When it was assigned to me in 1993, my work experience already totaled more than 40 years. Now, according to the law of 1997, it has become equal to... 37 years. Accordingly, I do not receive a full pension, although it is ridiculous.
I demanded that the Pension Fund return the difference for the period of study at a university and graduate school that was illegally excluded from my work experience. Naturally, my demand was rejected. The court at my place of residence will also refuse me.
What to do next?
I do not have a legal education and, alas, there are no specialists in my field of vision who could provide a qualified legal basis for subsequent claims.
The following help is needed:
1. Formulate claims with references to the laws being violated - to “undermine” the pension law of 1997, which excluded time spent studying at a university, etc., from the length of service. even for persons whose pension was calculated before 1997.
2. Formulate claims with references to the laws being violated - to “undermine” the entire modern Russian pension system, which, in my opinion, is in conflict with international law.
3. Are pension matters within the competence of the ILO? I would have more hope for her than for the European Court.
4. Can one of the reputable lawyers with experience working with the Constitutional and European Courts take on a specific case of pension arbitrariness in order to receive not only professional satisfaction, but also wide public recognition? Material gratitude, alas, by definition is impossible, and this is one of the morally traumatic reasons why the constitutional right to appeal to justice is not exercised by pensioners of the Russian Federation.
We are poor and therefore even more powerless than the rest, we are tenth-class citizens.
The same fate awaits almost all the rest (still able-bodied) of our fellow citizens. Truly “a bell that tolls for you too.”
I think that if lawsuits are filed by pensioners in different cities (with coverage of the process in the media), right now, in the pre-election months, there is hope for some kind of reaction from the Government and the State Duma.
Then it will be too late.
For contacts: Russia, tel.: <…>
With respect and best wishes,
Eleonora Golovina,
poor professor in Vyatka.
Partial translation of the second text:
Минимальная пенсия в России — размер по регионам в 2023 году
| Valentina Dorokhova | SRAVNI | 14.07.2023 |
Minimum pension in Russia: dimensions by region in 2023
The minimum pension in Russia is a pension level that cannot be lower than the subsistence level of a pensioner.
In 2023, the federal minimum for pensions is 12,363 rubles, and regions can set their own minimum.
[red. -12,363 rubles are approximately 120 euros]
If the regional cost of living is higher than the federal one, the minimum pension will be paid according to it. The minimum pension is awarded to non-working citizens whose accrued pension is lower than the subsistence level of pensioners.
Minimum pension in Russia in 2023
If a person's length of service and pension contributions are not sufficient for a pension that would be above the subsistence level, an additional payment is applied to the payment: a social supplement. In 2023 the federal cost of living for a pensioner amounts to 12,363 rubles. There are also regional minimums: if they are higher than the federal one, the pension is increased due to regional additional payments. For example, in Moscow the cost of living for pensioners is 16,257 rubles - this will be the lower limit for payments to Muscovites.
Indexation of the minimum pension
Every year the minimum pension is indexed, i.e. increased to keep pace with inflation (rising prices).
Since January 1, 2023, insurance pensions for non-working pensioners have been indexed by 4.8%
Taking into account indexation, the minimum pension is calculated as follows: first, the amount of social security payment is calculated - for this we look at how much the accrued pension is below the subsistence level. Subsequently the pension without supplement is indexed. Next, the previously calculated Social Security payment is added.
Here's how to calculate how much your pension will increase after indexing and paying Social Security.
Take for example the indexation for 2023.
A pensioner is awarded a pension of 11,000 rubles. The cost of living in Moscow is 16,257 rubles, which means the premium is 5,257 rubles, so we multiply the pension of 11,000 rubles by the indexation level: in 2023 it will be 1,048.
The result is 11,528, to which we add the social supplement of 5,257 rubles to 11,528 rubles and we get a pension of 16,785 rubles, which is now above the subsistence level of Moscow pensioners.
Minimum pension for regions of the Russian Federation
Minimum cost of living for pensioners in 2023 rubles / Minimum pension in 2023, rubles All Russia 12.363 / 12.363 Adygea 10 632 / 12 363 Altay 11 621 / 12 363 Amur Region 14 660 / 14 660 Arkhangelsk Region 14 341 / 14 341 Astrakhan Region 11 992 / 12 363 Bashkortostan 11 990 / 12 363 Belgorod Region 10 385 / 12 363 Bryansk Region 11 854 / 12 363 Buryatia 13 475 / 13 475 Vladimir Region 11 992 / 12 363 Volgograd Region 10 660 / 12 363 Vologda Region 12.486 / 12.486 Voronezh Region 11.261 / 12.363 Daghestan 11.250 / 12.363 Jewish Autonomous Region 16.664 / 16.664 Trans-Baikal Area 14 464 / 14 464 Ivanovo Region 11 497 / 12 363 Inguscetiya 11 621 / 12 363 Irkutsk Region 13 105 / 13 105 Cabardino-Balcaria 13.228 / 13.228 Kaliningrad Region 12 733 / 12 733 Kalmykhia 11 744 / 12 363 Kaluga Region 11 868 / 12 363 Kamchatka Region 22 694 / 22 694 Karachay-Cherkessia 11 374 / 12 363 Karelia 15 374 / 15 374 Kemerovo Region 11 250 / 12 363 Kirov Region 11 358 / 12 363 Komi 15 158 / 15 158 Kostroma Region 11 502 / 12 363 Krasnodar Region 11 868 / 12 363 Krasnoyarsk Region 13 722 / 13 722 Crimea 11.992 / 12.363 Kurgan Region 11 621 / 12 363 Kursk Region 11 036 / 12 363 Leningrad Region 12 733 / 12 733 Lipetsk Region 10 665 / 12 363 Magadan Region 21 511 / 21 511 Mari El 10 879 / 12 363 Mordovia 11 021 / 12 363 Moscow 16 257 / 16 257 Moscow Region 14 858 / 14 858 Murmansk Region 20 188 / 20 188 Nenets Autonomous Okrug 23 063 / 23 063 Nizhny Novgorod Region 11 621 / 12 363 Novgorod Region 12 116 / 12 363 Novosibirsk Region 12 666 / 12 666 Omsk Region 11 348 / 12 363 Orenburg Region 10 755 / 12 363 Oryol Region 11 497 / 12 363 Penza Region 10 660 / 12 363 Perm Region 11 374 / 12 363 Kraj Primorskij 14 711 / 14 711 Pskov Region 12 239 / 12 363 Rostov Region 11 621 / 12 363 Ryazan Region 11 015 / 12 363 Samara Region 11 621 / 12 363 San Petersburg 12 981 / 12 981 Saratov Region 10 385 / 12 363 Sakha (Yakutia) 18 667 / 18.667 Sachalin Region 16 813 / 16 813 Sverdlovsk Region 12 116 / 12 363 Sebastopoli 12 486 / 12 486 Nord Ossetia 11 127 / 12 363 Smolensk Region 11 992 / 12 363 Stavropol Region 11 127 / 12 363 Tambov Region 11 763 / 12 363 Tatarstan 10 508 / 12 363 Tver Region 11 992 / 12 363 Tomsk Region 12 441 / 12 441 Tula Region 12 239 / 12 363 Tyva 12 486 / 12 486 Tyumen Region 12 363 / 12 363 Udmurtia 11 003 / 12 363 Ulyanovsk Region 11 003 / 12 363 Khabarovsk Area 16 486 / 16 486 Khakassia 12 610 / 12 610 Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug 16.951 / 16.951 Chelyabinsk Region 11 808 / 12 363 Chechnya 11 868 / 12 363 Chuvashia 10 632 / 12 363 Chukotka Autonomous Okrug 30 906 / 30 906 Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug 17 994 / 17 994 Yaroslavl Region 11 868 / 12 363
Partial translation of the third text:
Россияне попали в порочный круг низких зарплат и пенсий
| Anastasia Bashkatova | Nezavisimaya Gazeta | 28.08.2023 |
Russians are trapped in a vicious cycle of low wages and pensions
….
Russians have identified two main financial sources in old age: pension, to which one in four people aspire, and salary - almost 30% of future pensioners are planning for it, a survey by the NAFI Analytical Center showed. The predominance of low-paid jobs limits the growth of pensions and also forces the points-based pension system to maintain the "equalization" of payments,
.....
“The main reason for low pensions is the structure of wages in the Russian labor market, where a significant share is made up of low-paid jobs” Sinyavskaya explained.
…..
“At the same time, there is high wage differentiation.” As a result, in order for beneficiaries of low wages to receive a pension at least at the subsistence level, the pension system, despite all efforts to introduce the so-called points, retains, according to Sinyavskaya, “a significant element of redistribution, which leads to equalization.”
….
“But this is not enough, and some pensioners who do not work have to be paid above the subsistence level,” clarified the expert.
…..