The Government on September 30 approved a number of changes concerning mainly the method of assessing the incomes and welfare indicators for providing social benefit. The amendments are designed to improve the mechanism for implementing the program on social assistance and support for disadvantaged families, IPN reports.
“We should support the socially deprived families with salaried members and try to motivate them not to leave the job in favor of the social benefit, helping them thus to ensure decent living conditions by themselves, without depending on the social assistance system. We thus suggest ignoring 200 lei of the salary per salaried family member, up from 120 lei now,” said Minister of Labor, Social Protection and Family Valentina Buliga.
There were also proposed changes as regards the financial assistance for families with children and pensioners. “To support the families with children, we suggest ignoring the child benefit paid up to the age of 1.5/3 years. In order to include a larger number of pensioners in this program, we propose ignoring the financial assistance provided when determining the incomes. This type of support is widely used in other countries,” stated Valentina Buliga.
The list of welfare indicators will be also modified in a move to avoid situations when poor families do not get benefit. The color TV set, refrigerator, vacuum cleaner and ordinary washing machine will be removed from the list so as to allow more socially disadvantaged families to enter the social assistance system.
According to the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, the implementation of the proposed changes will not involve additional costs in 2014 and 2015.
To take effect, the legislative initiative must be adopted by Parliament.
