Another 50,000 families in Moldova will receive cold-month allowances of 350 lei a month as of 2019, IPN reports, quoting the changes made by the executive to the regulations concerning the method of deciding and paying the given allowance.

Currently, cold-month allowances are paid to about 200,000 families. The amendments are aimed at increasing the social assistance for disadvantaged families, including those that include pensioners with pensions lower than 2,000 lei.

Under the draft decision, the lump sum of 600 lei provided to pensioners and recipients of social welfare lower than 2,000 lei will not be taken into account when calculating the incomes of the potential beneficiaries.

The multiplication coefficient used to determine the minimum monthly guaranteed income that enables to benefit from cold-month allowance was raised from 1.6 to 1.95.

The financial resources needed to implement the decision were earmarked in the 2019 state budget.