Russia’s President Putin is pretty sure that the country’s citizens have been given the maximum possible amount of social benefits. That is why he firmly decided to stop bumping up government spending and developing new social programs and projects. Russia is one of the first countries to say that it has too high level of social responsibilities. It should be noted that Russian resources are kept in hands of few people and not meant be somehow shared with others.
Meanwhile, the nations, where the unemployment benefits are several times higher than Russia’s living wage, keep providing support to its residents despite the weakness in the world economy. However, from now on, Russian government will first assess if it has enough funds before taking any responsibilities.
According to Putin, amid current economic situation, “it would not be fair to people who were promised something earlier if the government initiates new beneficial programs”.
The country’s authorities are trying to find the way how to prune the budget and taper off previously approved spending. President Putin does not consider it economically feasible to fulfill the pledges taken before. The Ministry of Finance has already introduced some propositions including the cancelation of the maternity capital after 2016, revision of pension fund spending, raise of retirement age to 60, and ineffective government spending cut by 10-15%.
While Prime Minister Medvedev considered the introduction of the maternity capital an efficient measure to beef up the country’s birth rate, experts seem not to share his opinion. They say the baby boom is caused not by the maternity capital, but by far more trivial thing: in 1980s there was rapid population growth and now that generation reached its reproductive age.
