Draft Public Social Insurance Budget for 2007 Adopted

The Supervisory Board of the National Social Security Institute (NSSI) Tuesday adopted the 2007 draft public social insurance budget.

On a motion by Labour and Social Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova, the Board decided that persons who have been unemployed for more than 2 months and who have two and a half years until attainment of retirement age and are registered at the employment offices, will receive a minimum monthly benefit of 90 leva as from next year. The measure will affect 11,000 people and will cost some 12 million leva that will come from the Unemployment Fund.

The revenue from own sources of public social insurance is expected to be 3,400 million leva in 2007, of which 3,363 million leva will come from social insurance contributions and 539 million will be transferred from the executive budget, NSSI Governor Yordan Hristoskov told journalists after the Suprevisory Board meeting. The transfers are for social and health insurance of children and pensioners who are not covered by the health insurance system.

The Pensions Fund is in a 1,608 million leva deficit which is normally financed by a national budget subsidy, but since the other public social insurance funds are in a surplus, the subsidy will be 1,447 million leva, as much as in 2006, Hristoskov added.

Public social insurance expenditures will amount to 5,375 million leva, of which the largest share, 4,442 million, will go for pensions, followed by 806 million for sickness, unemployment and maternity allowances and benefits.

The number of pensioners is expected to continue to edge down next year. They are expected to be some 2,270,000, or 16,000 fewer than in 2006. Replying to a question, Hristoskov specified that the number of pensioners per 100 working population will drop from 92 this year to 89 in 2007.

An additional 180 million leva will be needed for an 8.5 per cent pension indexation next year, and they have been included in the public social insurance budget. The Supervisory Board voted in favour of July 1, 2007 as the effective date of this rise. If Parliament resolves, instead, on moving this date up to January 1, an extra 200 million leva will have to be budgeted for this purpose.

Because of the increased period of entitlement to paid maternity leave from 135 to 315 days, an extra 2.5 million leva have been budgeted.

The level of unemployment benefits will not be changed, so as to encourage job-seeking.

BTA