Reform or collapse

The government will change the retirement age on an emergency man

As soon as the presidential election was held in Russia, to raising the retirement age ceased to be a political taboo. Now the Cabinet does not need to be limited to euphemisms about "individual pension capital" and "worthy old age at his own expense." The role of the responsible for unpopular reforms went to Dmitry Medvedev, who promised “in the shortest perspective” to introduce a bill on the calibration of the pension system to the State Duma. Judging by the pace of consultations taken in the government, the issue may be resolved already in the spring session of the State Duma, that is, until mid -July, and the first change in retirement age will occur in 2019. According to RBC, officials consider two possible configurations promoted by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labor.

For men, it is proposed to bring the age of retirement in both scenarios to 65 years, but in the case of women to choose between 63 and 65 years.

The increase in the increase, as expected, will be 6-12 months in a year.

The arguments used by supporters of pension reform are long known. In the limit, they say that the joint system in which the working population pays for current pensioners does not have a future - especially for poor countries as Russia. However, it will not be easy to convince Russians: in a fresh survey of Headhunter, 88% of respondents opposed raising the retirement age.

Medvedev refers to the fact that the current age bar for retirement-60 years for men and 55 years for women-was established in the USSR in the 1930s, when the average life expectancy was 40 years. In 2016, the indicator grew to 71 years, while radical growth did not actually occur compared to Soviet times: in the 1960s, the average life expectancy in the country reached 69 years.

In modern Russia, people live at least 10 years less than in developed countries, and they receive pensions 5-10 times more modest than European ones.

Nevertheless, objective demographic trends make themselves felt. The ratio of employees from whose earnings are paid insurance premiums and recipients of pensions decreased from 4.8 in 1959 to 2.16 in 2016, and by 2030 the number of employees and pensioners will be equal. A large -scale hole has formed in the Pension Fund: a transfer from the federal budget in 2018 will be 3.35 trillion rubles.

The economic growth and favorable demographic situation of the zero allowed the authorities to increase social payments and to preserve the situation. But today there was no trace of previous well -being. The salary fund is not growing, the small generation of the 1990s enters the labor market, which leads to a reduction in the number of able-bodied population. Against this background, the pension provision system is rapidly degrading: the pension savings of Russians are frozen, the indexation of payments to working pensioners has not been carried out since 2016, and for everyone else it has been a creak and due to fraud with statistics. Therefore, the fact that the decision cannot be postponed, the government is perhaps right.

The question is how much the proposed reform will be the accounting in spirit. An increase in the retirement age by about a third will reduce the number of pensioners on budgetary support, but will create new social risks. The first of them is an increase in the number of pensioners behind the poverty line. The average pension in Russia barely reaches one and a half living wages (14 thousand rubles), and for families balancing on the verge of poverty, the loss of this source of income can become critical.

The second risk is possible distortions in the labor market. Due to health problems and discrimination by employers, not all pensioners will be able to provide themselves with jobs after 60 years, and those who can, will be forced to compete for employment with the young generation. In addition, a third of men today does not live to retire, and after the reform “Work to the Sepulcher” will become an even more frequent occurrence.

In a model of pension reform, some smoothing mechanisms can be laid. For example, the CSR of Alexei Kudrin proposed maintaining the possibility of an early retirement, but with minimal security, and introduce additional incentives for those who want to work longer. But unpleasant surprises are also possible in addition to the growth of retirement age: increasing minimum experience, growth in insurance premiums or even the abolition of insurance pensions for working pensioners. The moment for thoughtful reforms in the interests of the population was lost 10 years ago, today the government is only trying to avoid the complete collapse of the pension system.