The State Duma voted 5 times a day against the indexation of pensions for working pensioners

The Russian authorities once again refuse to index pensions for working pensioners. On January 19, the State Duma rejected five alternative bills at once, TASS writes.

The deputies rejected the draft law, which was submitted for consideration by the LDPR faction in July 2021. He proposed to resume the indexation of insurance pensions for working pensioners from January 1, 2022. Similar bills from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, from the non-factional deputy Oksana Dmitrieva, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Khakassia and the Legislative Assembly of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug did not find support from legislators..

All these bills were not supported by the Cabinet of Ministers of Russia. Working pensioners must compensate for inflation, which is usually indexed to pensions, at the expense of their salaries, according to the government’s conclusions. In addition, the bills do not specify the sources and procedure for the execution of expenses.

The Cabinet of Ministers regularly opposes the deputies’ initiative to index pensions for working pensioners. The previous time, when the Cabinet of Ministers refused the deputies, it was stated in the conclusion that 538 billion rubles would be required for indexation.

According to the PFR and Rosstat as of October 1, 2022 in Russia had 8.1 million working pensioners.

Pensions for working pensioners have not been indexed for almost seven years. The last time they did this was in 2016. The resumption of indexation is discussed almost every year: both in 2020 and 2021, such initiatives appeared in the Duma. However, the decision was never made.

Last year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov opposed the initiative. He spoke about some kind of injustice: “When you receive both a salary and a pension, you say: let’s also index the pension.”

Last year, the burden on the budget increased significantly due to the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine. In 2022, spending increased from 24.7 trillion rubles to 31.1 trillion rubles, while the budget was executed with a deficit of 3.3 trillion rubles. The deficit will continue in the next three years, follows from the budget law.