Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, stated that more than 7 million Ukrainian pensioners live below the poverty line. He said this in an interview with Ukrainian Radio, emphasizing that the main reason for this is the injustice of the current pension formula and indexation mechanism.
According to Hetmantsev, there are about 10.5 million pensioners in Ukraine, and two-thirds of them find themselves in a situation where their income actually does not allow them to provide even basic needs. The MP emphasized that the main problem is that indexation is carried out not in relation to a person's real pension, but in relation to the salary base from which the pension was previously calculated. This base remains "frozen" at the 2018 level.
He explained that such a system creates a paradox: if the average salary, on the basis of which the pension is assigned, is higher than the current indexed base figure, then the pension is not indexed at all. Where indexation does occur, its size is catastrophically behind the real economic situation.
According to Getmantsev's calculations, in 2025 the gap between the real salary and the one on which the indexation formula is based will reach 49%. This leads to the fact that a person with 35 years of experience and a real average salary should receive about 7 thousand hryvnias in pension, but instead receives only 3119 hryvnias. The difference exceeds 55%, and this, according to him, is a "catastrophe."
He separately drew attention to the problem of so-called "clan pensions" - prosecutors', judges', and law enforcement officers'. According to him, the maximum pension in Ukraine exceeds the minimum by 635 times - there is no such gap anywhere in the world.
Hetmantsev noted that it is necessary to honestly change the calculation formulas, because there is a financial resource to increase pensions. This year, the Pension Fund received 80 billion hryvnias more, but these funds are directed to repay special pensions, and not to improve the situation of ordinary pensioners, who need support the most.
