During a regular meeting of the Government on January 27, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine supported a draft law proposing amendments to certain laws of Ukraine on improving pension legislation. In particular, from 2022 it is envisaged to establish the annual indexation of pensions no later than March 1.

"This issue should no longer be an element of political manipulation. We propose to make everything transparent and set clear deadlines for when indexing should take place. In addition, the bill proposes to regulate injustice, when certain categories of citizens simply did not have their pensions indexed," the Prime Minister stressed.

The Government also approved a package of bills of the Ministry of Social Policy, which change the outdated approaches to the formation of the subsistence level. According to the Prime Minister, new approaches should be introduced in order to improve the methodology for determining the subsistence rate and streamline the mechanism of its application.

According to the Minister of Social Policy Maryna Lazebna, the subsistence rate should be a value for determining the basic social needs of a person at a minimum level.

"The subsistence rate will be determined and used exclusively to determine the basic social guarantees, which are the main source of income for a person. These are the minimum wage, the minimum age pension, state social assistance to low-income families and other types of state social assistance, which are the main source of incomes for the citizens," said Maryna Lazebna.

The Minister of Social Policy added that almost 180 current norms provide for the use of the subsistence level, which is twice the number of norms governing the issue of social benefits. Therefore, the bill contains the proposal to introduce basic values for the calculation of such payments and fees as the basic value for social benefits for children and the basic value for social benefits, the basic value for cash payments and penalties, the basic value for administrative fees.

"The Ministry has done a titanic job and it is important that now the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine take up the baton to enact our developments," summed up the Prime Minister.