Regulation on way of establishing, payment of social benefit to be amended in Moldova

Chisinau, 23 September /MOLDPRES/ - The regulation on the way the social benefit is established and paid was amended under a cabinet decision today. Most new provisions will enter into force on 1 October 2022, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.   

The amendments made represent an important step in the reformation of the programme on social assistance, one of the goals concerned being the stimulation of the employment of people able to work from the families enjoying the social benefit. 

To this end, the new regulation sees that the salary incomes of the jobless people or day workers, who will be employed, will not be taken into account while assessing the right to social benefit and/or benefit for the cold period of the year during three consecutive months starting from the employment month. Also, the value of ignoring from the salary incomes for each family member at the calculation of the general income was increased from 200 to 500 lei.  

Another measure consists in the gradual reduction of the quantum of social benefit and the limiting of the duration of the presence in the programme of the disadvantaged families, which are made up of unemployed or day workers. Thus, as for the families which have a member registered as jobless during 7-9 months, the monthly quantum of the social benefit is cut by 20 per cent and if this period is longer than 10 months, - by 40 per cent.  

Decision-makers will act similarly in the case of day workers too: as for the people who worked less than 30 days in the first six months after the social benefit was established, the social benefit will decrease by 20 per cent starting the seventh month and by 40 per cent starting from the tenth month, if they worked less than 45 days in the first nine months.   

Also, decision-makers rely on the increase in the number of families with children participating in the programme on social assistance, through increasing by 396 lei of the monthly minimum guaranteed income (VLMG) for each child (from 1,022.25 to 1,418 lei), additional increase of VLMG by 169 for each child with severe or pronounced disability degree and increase in the ignoring from the allowances for child care from 200 to 500 lei at the calculation of the family’s general income.    

The cabinet makes amendments also to the monthly minimum guaranteed income of the people with disabilities. The differentiation of its size will be calculated depending on the degree of disability both in case of adults and of children. Thus, VLMG will be additionally increased by 273 lei for one adult with severe degree of disability.     

It is worth noting that the decisions issued for the applications submitted till 1 October 2022, which period of providing of this right did not expire, will be reexamined automatically. If after the reexamination, decision-makers find out the non-giving of the right to social benefit, families will continue receiving financial support in the sizes established till the entrance into force of the new regulation for the period left, but not later than 31 March 2023.   

An additional sum of about 50 million lei of the state budget, already envisaged in the budgetary rectification, is needed for implementing this project.  

Photo: Government