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During the show, Monika Navickienė had a discussion with journalist Vladimir Laucius.
He is developing the idea of pensions for lonely people. Please tell me when and how you will implement this idea, where you will get the money from.
Yes, we plan to take this measure as one of the poverty reduction measures, and we are currently in discussions with the Ministry of Finance on how to ensure sustainable sources of income so that we can implement this project. We are preparing for July 2021 and hope to fully implement it in 2022.
And how will the full and incomplete scope differ from what it will be from 2021 onwards? July?
Regulatory issues: it is not easy to change the issues of pension regulation if we want the instrument to be both specific and unique as possible. This needs to be properly balanced both in terms of fees and in terms of number of beneficiaries.
Does this mean that in 2021, some lonely people will get a pension and others will not?
That would be the goal.
Tell me, how are you going to deal with possible abuse? After all, people can plead alone, see themselves formally alone, and actually live together.
I always find it difficult to answer questions about how I will fight abuse, because I would always be inclined to think that people and their goodwill should be trusted.
But, of course, there may be such abuse, it will not prevent it – there is certain data from Sodra. Furthermore, we have a social support system that now reaches some lonely people.
We will try to share all of our existing databases, as well as possibly connect municipal employees, which could help identify the real people who live alone and those most in need of that support now.
You said this yesterday: “Early retirement is not a good solution.” What then to do with the people for whom this is the only solution who are elderly, retired and lost their jobs? You say that early retirement is a bad decision.
I say the goal should be to ensure that people do not earn less than what they deserve in terms of seniority when they reach old age and retire. Now we see that the beneficiaries of early retirement receive lower pensions because, afterwards, the law constantly reduces it, despite the fact that the term has already expired and the real old-age pension has started.
People simply earn less income and find themselves in some trap. The objective would be for people to receive, as far as possible, that old-age pension. Perhaps a better solution, if there is already a need to retire earlier or stop working, is to accompany people up to retirement age with a benefit that would lead to a higher old-age pension, rather than the principle that a person is constantly trapped in a lower income.
This is what I mean is that early retirement does not guarantee a person a higher income today, and the state has to think that pensions should be as high as possible after all, especially if people have accumulated them during their seniority, it should go higher.
You see, people often voluntarily retire, they are forced to retire. Current statistics show that there is high unemployment in Lithuania and that this high unemployment consists of unemployment among the young and the old. What to do for people approaching retirement but have lost their job and early retirement options would no longer exist, or how?
No way. The system works as it does, no one is going to change anything at this time. We just have to think about the fact that people, if they have the opportunity to stay in the labor market for as long as possible, they should do so and we will discuss this in the Tripartite Council and with the employers so that they have the minimum incentives. as possible to lay off the elderly and if they want to stay in work, market to have better conditions to do so.
The current system of early retirement is working and our aim is to raise the question that if people received a retirement pension with the help of a supplementary benefit, the pension that a person receives in their hands would be higher. The goal is for a person to receive more income even though they had to make a difficult decision and leave the job market earlier, if the circumstances have already arisen. We need and will seek those best solutions for people.
Another question, minister. Some people would like to leave the second pillar of pensions, the pension fund, but they cannot. You, when you were in the opposition, raised this issue and, as far as I remember, appealed to the Constitutional Court. Why not try to tackle that problem now?
It seems to me that the issue of pensions in general is very delicate and each change in pension regulation affects a large number of people who have certain expectations.
A certain stability of social security is a priority, so all the changes that are related to the accumulation of pensions, the second pillar and other things, really should not be made hasty decisions, recklessly, without discussion with experts, with the social partners. .
Which, it seems to me, that if changes are needed, they will be accepted, but only when there is a discussion with both the public and the experts. Now is too little time for us to make decisions in the second stage.
But, will it take into account the requests of those who want to leave it?
Of course. We will not only consider those requests for this particular case. There are more people who have suggestions on what certain reforms to the pension system would look like, but again now we are not going to analyze those things individually, but we will address pension regulation in a comprehensive way so that those pensions are growing and people get income higher, but at the same time the system remains stable.
See the full conversation with Monika Navickiene in the video at the beginning of the article.
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