プーチン年金改革と福祉現金化政策の挫折 : ロシア年金改革動向2003-5年

After long and heated debates in Russia, new pension laws with the so-called funded part were put into effect in 2002. The realization process in 2003 faced many unexpected difficulties and barriers, such as 1) mailing balance sheets to individual insurants, 2) extremely weak response from the insurants. Amendments were also made to the new pension laws such as, 1) reduction in tariff rates of the so-called uniform social tax (UST) from 28% to 20% of the wage bill, 2) exclusion of the middle-aged cohorts from the obligatory funded part. These amendments caused serious concern among specialists about a possible budget deficit in the Pension Fund of Russia, which could endanger the very core of the reform scheme. Against mounting worries among the population over the new pension system, the government adopted yet another radical welfare reform of "Monetization" which aims to replace various privileges for pensioners with monetary compensation, This policy angered elderly pensioners, who tried to resist through violent demonstrations and sit-ins by disrupting traffic. Furious babushka (elderly female pensioners) held demonstrations, which finally compelled concessions and rewriting of the laws on the part of the government. This failure will make the intended welfare reform even more difficult, and represents serious political damage to the Putin government, whose stable power base rested on popular support, particularly among elderly citizens