Payments to military pensioners will increase by 5.1%
Pensions of military pensioners will be indexed by 5.1% from October 1 of this year, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. The date itself is traditional for the indexation of military pensions, but the percentage announced by the head of the Ministry of Finance was a pleasant surprise for recipients. The fact is that previously the Cabinet of Ministers planned to carry out this indexation by 4.5%, but, as Siluanov put it, “in connection with the clarification of inflation forecasts”, it decided to raise the bar slightly — to 5.1%. The innovation will affect about 23 million Russians.
Anton Siluanov announced new indexation parameters for military pensioners at a recent government meeting. According to the Minister of Finance, “in this case, the pension coefficient changes to 89.83% from October 1, 2024, that is, pensioners will receive higher pensions taking into account the updated inflation forecast.”
A military pension is a monthly payment assigned by the state after an employee retires or becomes disabled. Also, relatives of deceased military personnel may receive such a payment due to the loss of a breadwinner.
The reduction factor is the percentage of adjustment to military pensions, the amount of which was established at the end of each year. The application of this coefficient led to the fact that former military personnel received the pension assigned to them not at 100%, but slightly lower.
In general, military pensions are subject to mandatory annual indexation in accordance with the standards established in the region of residence of the pensioner. In 2022, pensions for military retirees increased by a total of 19.5%, and from October 1, 2023, by another 10.5%. At the moment, the size of the military pension is 41,000 rubles. and higher.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the total increase in monthly payments in 2023 covered 2.778 million military pensioners. The same or slightly larger number of Russians will be able to count on indexation this fall.
MK asked economist Andrei Loboda, director of communications at BitRiver, to comment on the upcoming change in payments to military pensioners.
«The peculiarities of indexing military pensioners' pensions are that first the amount of monetary allowance is indexed, then a reduction coefficient is applied,» the expert explained. «Therefore, pensions for military pensioners, that is, for retired military personnel and security forces, are significantly higher than the average pensions for non-military pensioners. Thus, the average pension for a military pensioner in the Russian Federation was 41 thousand rubles at the beginning of the year, exceeding the average pension for a non-military pensioner by 75%. » According to MK's source, this year, military pensioners' pensions will be increased from October 1 by 5.1%, based on the projected future inflation rate for 2024, and not on last year's inflation, as for ordinary pensioners.
«In general, the issue of indexing pensions for military pensioners is very important, especially in the context of the SVO,» says Andrei Loboda. “This is a question of the state’s obligations to a fairly large social group of Russian citizens and, ultimately, to the whole of society.”