The Russian Pension Fund Board met in Moscow today to sum up results of the Fund’s activity in the first half of 2019 and to set tasks for the period till the end of this year. The meeting was attended by PFR Board Chairman Anton Drozdov, Board members, and heads of the Fund’s regional branches.
Increase of pensions and social benefits
Just like before, a primary objective of the Pension Fund in 2019 is to raise pensions and social benefits consistent with the legislative modifications made in the end of 2018.
In January 2019, the Pension Fund accomplished enhanced indexation of insurance pensions by 7.05%. As a result, payments received by 31 million non-working pensioners grew higher than the inflation rates, by an average 1,000 rubles per month. The indexation took place on January 1, a month ahead of the deadline set by the insurance pension law. An average old-age insurance pension of non-working pensioners reached 15,500 rubles.
Also on January 1, the Pension Fund increased pensions of persons, who worked in agriculture for at least 30 years. The fixed payment of their insurance pensions grew by 25% or 1,300 rubles a month. Nearly one million non-working countryside pensioners had their pensions increased since the beginning of the year.
The monthly benefit and the package of social services received by 15.2 million pensioners, who are entitled to federal benefits and social support, grew by 4.3% on February 1, 2019.
State pensions, including social pensions, were increased by 2% in April. The increase applied to pensions of 4 million working and non-working pensioners, and the average social pension reached 9,300 rubles in 2019.
In August, the Pension Fund updated payments to pensioners, who were working in 2018, with due account of additional pension points gained in the period of their employment. Insurance pensions of 12.2 million pensioners were modified as a result.
In addition, payments from pension savings increased on August 1 for funded pensions (+4.9%) and for demand pensions (+5.1%). The payments were modified as result of funds’ investment by management companies and applied to 88,000 pensioners.
Main areas of PFR activity in H2 2019
The Pension Fund will continue its core activity till the end of this year.
First of all, it will assign higher pensions to countryside residents, who will apply for receiving this entitlement from the PFR. The pensions will be increased consistent with Russian Government Resolution No. 805 dated June 25, 2019, which broadened the list of occupations and positions of agricultural workers entitled to larger fixed payments within their pensions.
The Pension Fund will also continue to assign early pensions on the new grounds endorsed by Federal Law No. 350-FZ dated October 3, 2018. The provisions apply to people with a long length of employment (42 years for men and 37 years for women) and mothers of three and four children.
Given the new method of calculation of the pensioner subsistence minimum, which took effect in July 2019, some constituent territories will replace the federal pension supplement paid by the Pension Fund with the regional supplement assigned by local social security services next year. PFR branches in relevant regions will accomplish the transfer of the relevant function (assignment of the social benefit) to local social security bodies and will provide necessary assistance before the end of this year.
Pension Fund branches have also been tasked with broadening the range of electronic public services by stepping up information exchange between the PFR and multifunctional centers via the electronic interagency exchange system.
Besides, Pension Fund branches will step up the issuance of electronic maternity capital certificates and expedite the provision of support to families with two children.
The PFR is successfully providing public services on the basis of information from the Federal Register of Disabled Persons, including assignment of disability pensions and monthly benefits. Emphasis will be put on the control over timely submission of information about disabled persons by medical and social examination bureaus, which are sometimes late to upload the information in the register, by the PFR as the operator of the Federal Register of Disabled Persons.
Working groups will commence operation at PFR branches before the end of this year to control the timely submission of information to the Unified Social Security Information System (USSIS). There is a task of continuous submission of information to the system by all agencies, so that it could be used for project purposes. One of these projects is the unified list of orphans in need for housing. The USSIS is already being used by the National Project “Demography,” in which some constituent territories are implementing a pilot project to raise real incomes of citizens and to reduce poverty.
Pension savings were transferred between funds under new rules this year. Since January, it has been possible to apply for transferring pension savings only via branches and client services of the Russian Pension Fund or via one’s account on the Gosuslugi portal. According to preliminary estimates, those measures cut transfers, including premature ones that result in the loss of investment income, seven times.
The PFR will continue to implement the new procedure, will properly process applications from citizens, and will explain consequences of premature shift from one pension fund to another within less than five years.