KIEV, July 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s average monthly pension equals 1,601 hryvnia (about $72.5), Ukrainian Pension Fund Head Alexei Zarudny said on Monday.
"As of July 1, the average pension equaled 1,601 hryvnia. This is just 42 hryvnia [$1.9] more than as of the same date a year ago," Zarudny said at a board meeting of the Social Policy Ministry.
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"Considering the increase in the subsistence level in December this year, the average pension should grow by another 100 hryvnia [$4.5]," he added.
The rates of the Ukrainian population’s impoverishment have accelerated sharply this year but the government is doing nothing to remedy the situation, leader of the Ukrainian Choice public movement Viktor Medvedchuk wrote in an article posted on the movement’s website.
According to data released by the Ukrainian State Statistics Agency, real household incomes in the country fell by 23.5% in the first quarter of 2015 from the same period last year.
Specifically, Ukraine’s average real wage in January 2015 equaled 82.7% of the level registered in January 2014 and this figure was observed to decline with each passing month to fall to 76.5% in May, Medvedchuk said.
Both the internal and external sources of household incomes are declining in Ukraine.
According to data released by the Ukrainian National Bank, private money transfers to Ukraine shrank by $513 million in the first quarter of 2015 to $1.053 billion or 33% less than in the same period last year.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government says there is no money in the state coffers for wage and pension increases and even the pay increase promised from December this year is thrown into question.