The fuss over retirement age continues
We will grow old at work
Olga Golodets intends to increase life expectancy in Russia to 74 yearsAnna Koroleva, KM.RU
At the same time, no one needs social unrest either. For this reason, the positions of various departments are extremely contradictory. Why, officials make statements and refute them themselves. The other day there was a proposal to increase life expectancy. What will follow is not difficult to guess.
The other day, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, speaking at a forum in Novosibirsk, said that the authorities plan to increase the average life expectancy in the Russian Federation from the current 70.8 to 74 years in the coming years.
Everything would be fine, but somehow I immediately remembered the notorious statement about the age of the Minister of Labor and Social Protection Maxim Topilina. According to the official, the retirement age can be raised after life expectancy reaches 80 years. And this will happen, according to him, in the foreseeable future. According to Rosstat data, by 2015 the life expectancy of the country's population will be 71.7 years, and by 2025 – 78.2 years.
But according to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), Russia belongs to high-income countries, and our life expectancy is close to the indicators of countries with medium-low income. So, life expectancy in 2012 for Russian men was 63 years, for women – 75 years. Compared with 1990, this indicator remained the same for men, while for women it increased by one year. At the same time, the share of Russians aged 60 years or more has even fallen since then: in 1990, it was 18 years for both sexes, and in 2012 it was 17 years. The indicators are not the most encouraging.
But it is obvious that if the authorities need life expectancy to grow sooner, nothing will prevent it from increasing. This, according to Olga Golodets, will be facilitated by the development of domestic healthcare.
What kind of development of this segment of our economy the minister was talking about is not very clear: so far, health costs are only decreasing. However, if the minister said that our healthcare is excellent, then it probably is. And if the life expectancy (one of the main indicators that are used to calculate the retirement age) increases, the retirement age increase is just around the corner.
But not so long ago, Ms. Golodets assured from the rostrum of the Gaidar Forum that changes in the retirement age in Russia are not expected. And discussions on the topic of its increase can be avoided for at least ten years. Let me remind you that the government has already approved a new pension formula, and calculations up to 2050 show that in the new conditions the solidary pension system is balanced.
The same was said by President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the conference of the All-Russian Popular Front (ONF): "Our pension fund is still in short supply. We extinguish the deficit from the budget or from the National Welfare Fund, which is formed at the expense of oil and gas revenues... The perspective should be such that there should be no deficit, and we have already talked many times, I think it is inappropriate to raise the retirement age today."
Despite this, officials continue to make hints about raising the retirement age. At the same Gaidar Forum, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that the self-sufficiency of the pension system in Russia can only be ensured by raising the retirement age. According to him, only by raising the retirement age it is possible to reduce the burden on the budget: about a trillion dollars are spent annually on subsidies to the pension system, since the FIU is being made up with a deficit. In addition, the funds go to benefits and preferences for certain categories of citizens.
The idea of raising the retirement age by increasing life expectancy by any means first caused outrage among experts. According to Roman Terekhin, a member of the expert council of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, Innovative Development and Entrepreneurship, the current retirement age of Russians is absolutely adequate to the current economic and social situation in Russia. This parameter has not been adjusted since Soviet times and its change in one direction or another will cause a number of problems. "If it is lowered, then it is necessary to look for new sources at the expense of which the pension will be paid, and this is extremely difficult in the current conditions, the parliamentarian says. – It is also not necessary to raise the retirement age, and it is not advisable to do so yet. In Russia, the life expectancy of the population is low, and even if the government plans to increase it with the help of healthcare, it will take many years, especially against the background of the existing reduction in funding for medicine. According to statistics, today every fifth Russian over the age of 60 does not live to the age of 65."
According to Terekhin, due to the increase in the retirement age, the problems of the labor market will worsen, because each such person will need to be provided with a job, or otherwise social benefits will have to be paid. As a result, this will not reduce budget expenditures and extra-budgetary funds, but only increase them or, at best, leave them at the same level.
However, in Russia today there are not enough vacancies for people over 60 years old. It is difficult to imagine an accountant of this age, because a person, even despite a wealth of professional experience, simply will not be able to keep up with all the changes in legislation, and hardly anyone will agree to retrain at this age for another profession. Therefore, it is necessary to talk about raising the retirement age of Russians only after the situation with an increase in life expectancy reaches a qualitatively new level, Roman Terekhin summarizes,
Nevertheless, more and more factors suggest that the government may raise the retirement age, says Marina Emeliantseva, head of the labor and social policy department of the independent expert center "Public Duma". Most likely, this will not happen right now, but it is possible that in a fairly short time, she believes.
One of the main reasons is the budget deficit of the Pension Fund. Now this deficit is mainly covered by the state budget, but every year the deficit of the Pension Fund is within a trillion rubles or slightly exceeds it. That is why the final point has not yet been put on the issue of raising the retirement age of Russians, and discussions on this matter continue to go on.
The problems that regularly suggest raising the retirement age of Russians continue to accumulate, says Marina Emeliantseva. The FIU is finding it increasingly difficult to find funds aimed at paying pension benefits. In addition, the country's economy is currently stagnating, that is, economic growth is very weak.
"Every year, added to the retirement age of a pensioner, saves substantial sums to the budget," says Anna Linevskaya, an analyst at the MFC. – However, even this will not solve the problem of the deficit of the FIU: the reform was started too late, and the effect – for various reasons – will also have to wait a long time. Since 2012, the budget deficit of the pension system has been decreasing by an average of 82 billion rubles a year, but this trend is short-lived, and by 2020 the deficit of the system will stop falling and will grow by another 185 billion rubles. And this is despite the fact that the processes of natural aging of the population will reduce the number of pensioners by 12%. In other words, the modified pension system is not a panacea for saving money. After all, the approach itself remains inflexible and formal."
One thing is clear, the domestic pension system has already been so "modernized" that neither current nor future pensioners trust it. It would be nice to just leave this system alone, at least for a while, and do the very health care that will increase the notorious life expectancy.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru20.005.2014