Pension reform: Much noise

Today's government meeting will be devoted to the progress of pension reform. Among the speakers are Chairman of the Board of the Pension Fund of Russia (PFR) Mikhail Zurabov, Deputy Minister of Finance Bella Zlatkis, who oversees pension reform issues in her ministry, and Minister of Labor and Social Development Alexander Pochinok. It must be admitted that the government has something to discuss; global expectations around this reform are raising increasing doubts: the opportunity to somehow help people earn money for a comfortable old age, to assist businesses in acquiring long-term investment money, to make citizens believe that this reform is worth at least the minimum tension in relations with the employer. Tension in such a situation is more than possible due to the employee’s desire to achieve an increase in contributions to the unified social tax.

At the same time, the noise around pension reform has not yet begun to subside. Some people of pre-retirement age, confused by their poverty, still hope that the reform will help them slightly increase their standard of living and create at least some guarantees of a comfortable existence after retirement. Financial companies are now seriously counting on getting at their disposal the resources that they have lacked for so long - guaranteed and long-term ones.

Let us remind you that, according to the current pension legislation, the structure of pension payments consists of three parts: basic, labor and funded. The basic wage is due to all citizens of the Russian Federation who have a minimum work experience and is equal to the minimum wage. From the first of October it is 600 rubles per month. The payment of these pensions is guaranteed by the federal budget and does not depend in any way on the activities of the pensioner himself. The second part of pension payments, labor, depends on the maximum earnings of the future pensioner for any five years of his work and on the average earnings in the country for the same five years. The third part, the savings part, depends on how much income the future retiree will receive from investing funds received in his personal savings account until the time he retires. All three types of pension payments are financed by the single social tax (UST), which amounts to 35.6% of the wage fund at the enterprise where the future pensioner works.

The difference between the funded part and other pension payments is that, firstly, it applies only to citizens born in 1954, that is, those who will retire no earlier than 2009 and 2014 (depending on gender). It will not affect citizens with earlier birth dates. Secondly, this part of pension payments is taken into account in individual (“savings”) accounts, in contrast to labor pensions, which go into the general pot and are paid from it. And thirdly, each citizen can manage these funds independently. Not in the sense, of course, that you can withdraw them from the account right now and spend them on anything - just that the funds from this account, which will increase every year due to the receipt of part of the Unified Social Tax, can be invested in various kinds of income-generating assets. The income received from these investments will be added to the balance of the savings account. And you can spend them on yourself after retirement age arrives.

And because of this funded part, which in itself constitutes an insignificant share of the Unified Social Tax (the rate of the funded part is 6%), public interest in the reform has not decreased for several months. And not everyone is aware of the disproportionality of this interest; for some reason, it seems to the owners of pension accounts that now they will have the opportunity to become very rich and ensure a decent old age for themselves. These hopes are in vain, since the low rate of the funded part of the Unified Social Tax is also imposed on low wages in the Russian Federation. On average over the past year it was 4.3 thousand rubles, for January-September 2003 it was 5.2 thousand rubles per month. It is not difficult to estimate that this will be about 60 thousand rubles per year, and receipts to the savings accounts of each citizen will amount to no more than 3.6 thousand rubles per year. The question is, is it worth making such a big fuss over such insignificant amounts?

Of course, like the entire Russian population, we hope that wages will rise every year. And along with it v and contributions to pension accounts. Taking into account the fact that all annual receipts will be summed up, over time, more or less worthy amounts may appear in these individual accounts, the owner of which can seriously think about where best to invest them. But only people who have completely lost touch with reality can talk about which management company to choose with 3-6 thousand rubles in their account.

However, in addition to inadequate individuals, there are quite adequate financial companies that are not embarrassed by the small amounts listed in the individual accounts of individual citizens - they understand perfectly well that many small accounts together give one large amount, investing which is a great pleasure. But this is where the difficulties begin. When we talked about low wages and low contributions to the Pension Fund, we meant low average wages. In fact, it is highly differentiated depending on the industry. In the most profitable ones - oil, gas and banking - wages exceed 16 thousand rubles per month, or 190 thousand rubles per year. This is not a measly 36 thousand per annum in light industry. There is something to fight for here. True, most likely there will be no battle. It will not happen because these industries are heavily monopolized in our country; there are few companies operating in them, and they have long ago had their own banks, insurance companies and non-state pension funds (NPFs), to which management companies will now be added (Once upon a time, however, a long time ago, there were them). And it is absolutely obvious that the pension savings of the employees of these companies will be directly sent to these management companies and non-state pension funds - there is no point in providing various kinds of third-party organizations with resources for nothing, and the oil and gas industry companies themselves need long-term financing, and the pension savings of employees are excellent source for this. The rest will be a matter of technology: since pension savings must be invested in securities, these securities will be printed in the required quantity and immediately sold to management companies. And this emission process will occur every year as the balances in pension accounts grow. Unless, of course, we are again affected by some kind of global crisis.

In a state-owned company, the role of which Vnesheconombank is destined to play, pension funds will be invested in government securities, helping the Ministry of Finance reinvest government debt. And this refinancing will need to be carried out as cheaply as possible, since our budget is meager and we cannot spend a lot on interest payments on the public debt. Consequently, investments by private pension companies in the securities of private manufacturing companies will, of course, be more profitable, although not by much. In order not to significantly increase the cost of borrowing for private investors.

Thus, one cannot count on a large economic effect from the introduction of pension accounts in the near future. For low-income citizens - because invest or don’t invest, but you can’t make a ruble out of a penny. For highly wealthy workers, additional income from pension savings in itself will not play a big role, since it is not comparable to income from the main type of activity. For the state and private pension companies that are not affiliated with large issuers, the most crumbs will remain, over which they will constantly fight. Apparently, the Pension Fund and private management companies that depend on their founders - large industrial corporations - will still be in the most advantageous position.

At the end of the mailing campaign, the head of the Pension Fund announced that several million people still would not see statements from their Pension Fund account, since the Fund did not even have their addresses. But they don’t exist because the employers of these individuals (if they have them, of course) did not enter into relations with social funds and did not pay the unified social tax for their employees. Therefore, these people will not receive pensions other than basic ones. Faced with such injustice, pensioners will begin (as the Pension Fund hopes) to demand from their employers the immediate establishment of relations with social funds and the payment of unified social tax. And if not from the entire salary, then at least from that which you don’t mind showing officially. Then the Pension Fund of Russia will receive an additional resource that it will be able to use according to its merits - not like private pension companies or management funds.