While the vast majority of Ukrainian pensioners survive on 2-4 thousand hryvnias per month, some representatives of “privileged” professions receive pensions that exceed these amounts hundreds of times. Judges, prosecutors, officials — all of them have spent years forming a system of special pensions, which has now turned into one of the largest social inequalities in Ukraine. People’s Deputy Danylo Hetmantsev talks about how this clan model arose, how much the “special” pension provision really costs the state, and why a major reform is indispensable.
The problem is that the clan system of special pensions was formed over decades by privileged clans. This is a network that clings to its own material vested interest. These are, although former, but very influential people in the country. They cling to the norm of the Constitution, which prohibits narrowing rights when adopting new laws, but they completely ignore other norms of the Basic Law, which guarantee equality of rights and the principle of non-discrimination on any grounds — including by type of activity. We need to fight this and change this approach.
What about pensions today?
Our current minimum pension is 2,361 hryvnia, and the average pension as of April 1, after the next annual indexation, is 6,341 hryvnia.
56.6% of pensioners receive less than 5 thousand hryvnias. For almost 400 thousand people, this is generally less than 3 thousand hryvnias, more than 3.3 million receive from 3 to 4 thousand hryvnias, 2.1 million from 4 to 5 thousand hryvnias. If we compare this with the actual subsistence minimum for the disabled, which is approaching 7 thousand hryvnias by the middle of this year, these categories of pensioners are far below the poverty line. And only 1.5 million people have it exceeding 10 thousand hryvnias. On average, their pension is 15.6 thousand hryvnias.
However, there is a category such as judges, where the average pension exceeds 100 thousand hryvnias. There are prosecutors who can become disability pensioners at the age of 35, while an ordinary Ukrainian man needs to work 35 years to receive the minimum pension, and a woman needs to work 30 years.
Some pensions increase automatically, others – through the adoption of laws, and still others (like for former military personnel) – are established by government decisions that have not been made for a long time. And all this discord adds additional colors to the feeling of injustice in society.
Special pensions are different
It is necessary to understand that the term "special pension" itself must be used very correctly.
Such payments are received not only by the conventional "elite" (former judges, prosecutors, people's deputies, members of the government), but also by employees of the militia (police) and other law enforcement agencies, former professional military personnel, ordinary civil servants and local government employees, persons who worked in hazardous industries, Chernobyl survivors, and many other categories.
And their “special pensions” are not always tens and hundreds of thousands of hryvnias. The pension of former military personnel is 8.5 thousand UAH, war veterans are 8.3 thousand UAH, children of war are 5.7 thousand UAH, and scientists are 5.6 thousand UAH. But these are also special pensions.
Billion-dollar "holes" in the budget due to court rulings
Among this variety of special pensioners, not all receive the payments provided for by current legislation. Not all of them have the opportunity (due to age and health) to defend their rights in court. But for those who do take this path, some cases are truly impressive.
It should be noted that often court decisions are made under laws that are no longer in force and that provided for higher payments than in new laws. As, for example, before the law "On the Prosecutor's Office" of 1991, although it lost its force after the deputies adopted a new law "On the Prosecutor's Office" in 2015. It was the previous one that provided for pensions of 90% of the salary, not 60%. A similar norm was also in the Law "On Civil Service" of 1993, which lost its force in 2016.
In 2023, courts issued 240,000 decisions in pension cases against the state, and in 2024, more than 100,000. The debt under court decisions is approaching UAH 100 billion. Moreover, decisions on certain categories of persons (prosecutors, judges, persons dismissed from service) will lead to an increase in the Pension Fund's expenditures for the payment of current pensions by approximately UAH 34.3 billion for 2025.
Another telling fact. There is a net deficit in special pension systems. That is, each person who has a special pension receives much more from the Pension Fund than they paid contributions to it during their professional activity. For example, there is a court decision according to which a prosecutor, with an average salary of 13 thousand hryvnias, received a pension of 97 thousand hryvnias. This is not fair to all our other citizens who receive meager pensions after working their entire lives.
What should pensions be like in the future?
The reform of special pensions is not only overdue, but even overdue. However, it should not be implemented separately, but exclusively as a component of the "great pension reform", which we have not seen in all the years of Independence.
I expect to see a radically different approach from government officials to pension provision for Ukrainians, one that will gradually, but consistently, and irreversibly eliminate the poverty of pensioners, rather than preserving and deepening it.
Currently, the proposals of the Ministry of Social Policy envisage a pension reform, according to which pensions should amount to at least 60% of the average person's earnings (by the way, this corresponds to the average level in the EU). Referring to the standards of the European Social Charter and the Convention of the International Labor Organization, it is proposed:
- The solidarity pension was 40% of the average salary;
- Additionally, a pension under the funded system is 20%;
- Additional pension systems from employers are possible in the form of an occupational pension – 10%.
I hope that the pension system reform will become a harmonious part of a more global reform aimed at overcoming poverty: reforming the wage system, the employment market, aimed at stimulating the creation of not just any jobs, but high-paying ones, de-shadowing the payment of wages - regardless of whether these professions are manual, engineering and design, scientific, or creative. Because it is impossible to overcome the poverty of pensioners in a country where working people and/or those who receive salaries in envelopes remain poor.
