Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov answered the offer of State Duma deputies to introduce New Year’s payments to pensioners, RIA Novosti reports.
“Today there is no such discussion, I didn’t have such information,” said the head of the ministry. Thus, he commented on the draft law of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans Affairs of December 16.
The deputies offered to establish the payment in the amount of pensions received by Russians. One of the authors of the document, the leader of the party “Fair Russia – for the truth” Sergey Mironov, said that the New Year’s payment would help the pensioners to celebrate the New Year and not to climb the debts on loans to buy gifts. He noted that parliamentarians vote for the initiative if the government is supported.
In mid-December, the State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Oleg Smolin said that the Russian pensioners did not pay for about 90 thousand rubles on average, since indexation occurs without taking into account inflation rates. He brought as an example of 2015, when inflation was about 13 percent, but pensions were indexed only by four percent.