HOW WE ARE DECEIVED WITH PENSIONS

In the first quarter of 2000, the State Statistics Committee gave the average salary in the country 2130 rubles, and the government "coordinated" with the Pension Fund the amount of 1257 rubles. trend, though? It is impossible to understand this logic in the usual way: it is the same as ...

In the first quarter of 2000, the State Statistics Committee gave the average salary in the country 2130 rubles, and the government "coordinated" with the Pension Fund the amount of 1257 rubles. trend, though? It is impossible to understand this logic in the usual way: it’s like a government decree to approve the multiplication table in a form that is more convenient for officials
The meager size of Russian pensions is the talk of the town. Despite the 10-20% increases presented by agitprop as royal gifts to the people, one can live on a pension only on the verge of poverty. And more often than not. But why should people who have worked honestly all their lives barely make ends meet?
The traditional answer of the officials of the Pension Fund of Russia (PFR) and the Ministry of Labor and Social Development to this question is run-in like pebbles on a sea beach: there is no money, we collect everything we can, but we must live within our means. And in general it will be even harder. Read Marcus Aurelius: "Don't lose courage - the worst is ahead"...
But are things really so bad in the pension system that meager pensions are a reality that needs to be put up with and taken for granted?
Research conducted by the author for several years together with the chairman of the Union of St. Petersburg Pensioners, Professor Yuri Petrov, casts serious doubt on this. For with all obviousness they lead to the conclusion that the main reason for meager pensions is double-entry bookkeeping, which is used by the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Social Development.
First, simple arithmetic. Any legal entity - an enterprise, institution, organization - deducts 29% of the accrued salaries of employees to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Further: in the country there are 66 million workers and 33 million pensioners who receive labor pensions (those paid from the Pension Fund - say, military pensioners receive pensions from other sources). Since the number of employees is twice the number of pensioners, it would seem that the average pension should be 58% of the average salary. In other words, at the end of 2000, when the average salary in the country was about 2,600 rubles, the average pension should have been about 1,500 rubles.
Many of your friends, reader, received such a pension? And half as much - do not you want? But why exactly?
Here's why. There is a triple deception between theoretical and real pensions. It is he who underestimates the pension at least twice.

Deception One: Two Statistics
As you know, the labor pension - according to the law in force since February 1, 1998 - is calculated as follows: the so-called individual pensioner coefficient (IPC) is taken and multiplied by the average salary in the country.
As it turns out, we have two average salaries. One is calculated by the State Statistics Committee and published for general information. And the second is approved by a government decree and is used to calculate pensions - to calculate the pension, the ICP is multiplied by it. So, reader: the second average salary for three years already, as it turns out, is one third, or even twice, lower than the first.
Don't believe? Read the government decree of January 15, 2001, No. 26, signed by Mikhail Kasyanov. Paragraph one: "On the proposal of the State Statistics Committee, agreed with the Pension Fund and the Ministry of Labor and Social Development, to approve the average monthly wage in the country for calculating and increasing state pensions for the fourth quarter of 2000 in the amount of 1523 rubles." At the same time, the official reports of the State Statistics Committee, as already mentioned, gave a completely different average salary: 2,600 rubles. In the third quarter of 2000, the State Statistics Committee reported that the average salary in the country was about 2,400 rubles, and the government, at the suggestion of the PFR, approved the average salary at 1,383 rubles. And exactly the same picture is observed every quarter when the government issues similar decrees!
So, during 1998, the average salary, according to the reports of the State Statistics Committee, was 1050 rubles - in government decrees, the value of 500-600 rubles appeared. In 1999, the average salary was about 1,500 rubles, while government regulations fixed figures from 850 to 1,175 rubles. In the first quarter of 2000, the State Statistics Committee gave an average salary in the country of 2130 rubles, and the government "agreed" with the PFR the amount of 1257 rubles. trend, though?
It is impossible to understand this logic in the usual way: it is like a government decree to approve the multiplication table in a form that is more convenient for officials.
In one of the interviews with the leadership of the PFR, the following explanation of the discrepancies in the figures was somehow heard: in government documents, they say, it is not about the accrued, but about the paid salary, therefore its value turns out to be less. But this “thesis” does not stand up to criticism: after all, in the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation - as any accountant knows - it is supposed to direct 29% of the accrued salary. If it is not paid, there is a debt to the FIU, with which the government has always justified the delay in pensions. However, the essence of the deception is simple: after all, if pensions are initially calculated taking into account non-payment of wages, the collected amounts should be enough for the uninterrupted payment of pensions, and there can be no delays. If pensions were calculated on the basis of the real average salary, the delays could be justified by the shortfall in insurance premiums. We have both: a "cut" pension, and delays in its payment...
But this is only the first deception, the other two are ahead.

The second deception: how to "lose" a million?
When drawing up a plan for collecting insurance premiums, the FIU must calculate which payroll fund is subject to these contributions on a monthly basis and what is the size of the working population. It would seem that the task for schoolchildren is something, but statistical accounting is well developed in our country. But here, too, double bookkeeping awaits us.
We will cite the data for St. Petersburg - they convincingly show how the FIU can count. Back in 1998, State Duma deputy and then chairman of the St. Petersburg YABLOKO, Alexander Shishlov, asked the St. Petersburg branch of the PFR to find out from what number of employees they proceed when drawing up their plans. The answer was that only 1.3 million people work in a city of almost 5 million people. I had to doubt the accuracy of the estimates of pension officials and request the city statistics committee. From where they reported completely different figures: the number of employees at enterprises of all forms of ownership ... 2.3 million people.
Where did the million (!) working citizens go? References to the fact that many are only registered at work, but, without receiving a salary, earn extra money on the side, without registering as unemployed, are untenable: any company where they can earn extra money is registered with the tax inspectorate, and payments to the FIU they demand from her properly. It is absurd to assume that almost a million Petersburgers receive money exclusively from hand to hand. Moreover: today a considerable part of students (and pensioners) work and should also be classified as those who should be taken into account when drawing up PFR plans.
Attempts to get explanations from the FIU ended in nothing: its management reported that it had no data on the number of employees in small enterprises, and only takes into account information about large and medium-sized firms. However, small firms also pay to the FIU! I wonder where the funds from their insurance premiums go? And one more “explanation”: they say that only those who have a pension insurance certificate are registered with the Pension Fund, and in many companies the management (or owners) intentionally do not issue these certificates to their employees. What prevents us from solving this problem together with the tax inspectorate? Maybe it's easier? After all, if the plan for collecting insurance premiums is almost doubled, is this money much easier to collect without straining?
The result, meanwhile, is simple: by underestimating the number of employees, the PFR automatically underestimates the pension. They planned to collect half as much - they paid half as much as a pension ...
The available data on Russia is slightly better: for example, back in 1999, when calculating a plan for collecting insurance premiums, the FIU believed that about 44 million people work in the country. This is instead of 66 million, which the State Statistics Committee takes into account. Total - 22 "lost" million Russians. With similar consequences. And there is no reason to believe that by the beginning of the third millennium, the calculations of the PFR had become more accurate ...
Well, if all the statistics in the FIU come from such a double-entry bookkeeping, one should not be surprised at low pensions. One should only be surprised that the former and current heads of the PFR have not yet shared the sad fate of the former heads of the State Statistics Committee ...
Well, now - the most interesting.

Fraud Three: Tailoring the Answer
It rarely happens that lies are “consecrated” by official documents, and not just documents, but methods. But this time it's the way it is.
Let's take a look at the "Temporary methodology for calculating the average monthly wage in the Russian Federation for calculating and increasing state pensions", approved by the First Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Development of the Russian Federation Mikhail Dmitriev, approved on December 25, 1997, and much will become clear. It turned out that the officials of the Ministry of Social Development and the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation are solving the problem ... from the end! And this is how it is done: instead of taking the average salary in the country, MULTIPLY it by the due 29 “pension percent” and get a plan to collect money from the FIU, the ministry and the FIU do exactly the opposite. They take the amount of funds collected by the Pension Fund, DIVIDE it by 29%, as a result of which they receive the same “average salary in the country”, on the basis of which the pension is calculated. It is this “average salary” that is then approved by a government decree. Simple and brilliant. Such is the pension arithmetic, you know ...
Of course, with this technique, you will always get exactly the answer you need! At the same time, the PFR does not need to strain at all: how much money they have collected - so much is fine. Let pensioners be indignant at the fact that newspapers publish one average salary, and use a much smaller one to calculate their pensions - they can always be explained that "the state has no money."
The described system has one more consequence. Since the plan for collecting insurance premiums inevitably turns out to be underestimated, the PFR (which, by the way, is an independent financial and credit institution) may well receive much more money than it is planned to collect. Where potential surpluses go is unknown, since there is no more control over the PFR than over the Central Bank. But it is known, for example, that the chairman of the PFR department for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, Andrey Andreev, since 1993, has been running for deputies at various levels over and over again. At the same time, Mr. Andreev, who is a modest government official and seemingly unable to have super-incomes, compares favorably with his competitors by the abundance and quality of election leaflets, as well as the number of publications praising him in the press. True, he did not succeed in becoming a deputy ...
The pensions of Russian old people are small not because there is "no money" in the country. They are small because those who use double bookkeeping to calculate pensions apparently have no conscience. Perhaps because they provided for themselves for the rest of their lives and are not in danger of living on a pension?