Help everyone or only retirees with smaller checks | The society

What should be the oldest in 2019 and can revenues be increased again? Legislation should be passed that will increase pensions starting in 2020. How fair is it to allow benefits to high-income pensioners?

As soon as the first checks have been made and the new one-time aid of 3,000 dinars for the older ones has been announced, the possibilities to further increase pensions in the next year are also to be expected. It is difficult to say with certainty whether it is realistic and what the real economic possibilities are for this to happen, but in the opinion of the Serbian Minister of Finance, Sinisa Mali, it is absolutely realistic that our economy is growing at a rate of 3.5 to four percent next year.

He recently pointed out that the government, with the IMF, was working on a new pension indexation formula and announced its implementation by 2020.

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– Prior to fiscal consolidation, pensions were adjusted twice a year to inflation. With a lot of optimism, we are entering 2019 and we are doing everything we can to create the conditions to increase salaries and pensions, because that is the basis of our policy, "he said. Mali.

For his part, Professor Milojko Arsić, Ph.D., of the Faculty of Economics of Belgrade, believes that it is possible that budget developments are a little more favorable than expected next year, which, according to him, would increase some state spending or reduce taxes.

– If budget developments were more favorable than expected, this should be used primarily to reduce taxes, because in this way, there would be more money to the economy – explains the professor. – This is a condition for achieving high GDP growth and, consequently, a sustained increase in wages and pensions over the next few years. Investment in Serbia remains weak, especially private domestic investment, which is essential for the long-term and long-term sustainable growth of the economy. Salaries in the public sector should no longer be increased in the next year, as they rose 9% for the second year in a row, which means they are growing faster than GDP and sector wages. private sector, which are neither economically viable nor equitable.

Likewise, prof. Dr. Arsić, pensions have increased by five percent this year, while the increase for the next amount is on average about seven percent. The average increase in checks will be even faster than wage growth in the private sector over the next year. There is therefore no economic justification for a further increase.

– Since next year's pensions are already increased by 5 to 25% for all retirees, there is no justification for further enlargement – explains our interlocutor. – However, in the coming year, a legal rule should be adopted, according to which pensions will increase from 2020.

Regarding the announcement that Serbia's oldest from next year could benefit from one-off assistance twice, Professor Arsic stressed that only the policy that stimulates economic growth is sustainable long-term, which means that the potential fiscal space should be used to reduce tax.

– If there was a tax room after the tax cuts, the granting of one-time assistance to pensioners with low pensions could be considered – said the interlocutor Novosti ". – It would be unfair if in a country where half of the employees earn less than 40,000 dinars per month, one-off assistance is given to pensioners who receive more than this amount.

As for the amount of the punctual aid, he could, according to him, raise to four to five thousand dinars. It would be good to make a difference or help more pensioners with fewer pensions. Since the pension fund still has a very high deficit, the funds for this assistance would come from the Serbian budget, on which a third of the pensions are still financed.

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GROWTH PRICE

One of the possibilities to increase pensions in the coming period, suggested by the prof. Mr. Arsic, the checks would be accompanied by averages of prices and revenue growth. This means that if inflation in a year is equal to three percent and wages increase by seven percent, this year's pensions would increase by 5 percent. This way of increasing pensions will contribute to the long-term viability of the pension system in Serbia and it would be fair for retirees to share in the fruits of economic progress.