I am a pensioner for the second year. In January, he received a pension benefit more than in December last year. Was there a recalculation and how are pension benefits calculated?
Yes, from January 1, 2023, last year's pension benefits from the UAPF are indexed by 5%.
Pension benefits from the UAPF are calculated in accordance with the Methodology approved by the Decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated October 2, 2013 No. 1042 (as amended from April 1, 2021) (hereinafter referred to as the Methodology).
According to the Methodology, in the first year of receiving pension benefits, the amount of pension savings is multiplied by the pension savings payout rate of 6.5% and divided by 12. For beneficiaries of certain categories (persons with a disability of group 1 or 2, if the disability is established indefinitely, as well as beneficiaries of pension benefits for whom the COPC has been paid in the aggregate for at least sixty months), the Methodology provides for adjustment factors.
Each subsequent year, the size of the monthly pension benefit increases by the indexation rate of pension payments - 5%.
At the same time, the monthly pension benefit from the UAPF is made in the amount of at least 70% of the subsistence minimum established for the corresponding financial year by the law on the republican budget (in 2023, the subsistence minimum was 40,567 tenge). Accordingly, since the beginning of the current year, the minimum payment from the UAPF increased by 8.5% compared to last year (in 2022 - 26,172.3 tenge) and amounted to 28,396.9 tenge (70% * 40,567).
For persons who exercised their right to receive pension benefits from the UAPF before January 1, 2018, pension benefits are paid according to a previously selected schedule (annually, quarterly, monthly) in the amount of at least thirty times the minimum pension established for the corresponding financial year by the law on the republican budget (in 2023 30 x 53,076 = 1,592,280 tenge).
Recall that pension benefits from the UAPF are paid until the exhaustion of pension savings on the IPSA.
Also, from January 1, 2023, the calculation of the solidarity old-age pension has changed. Now the value of the maximum income used to calculate pension benefits by age (solidarity pension) is 55 MCI. At the same time, for completed pensioners, the recalculation of the solidarity pension will be made if the average monthly income for any three consecutive years, regardless of interruptions in work from January 1, 1998, previously submitted to the State Corporation for calculating the amount of the pension, was above 46 MCI.
In addition, the minimum amount of the basic pension has been increased, which today is 24,341 tenge (60% of the subsistence minimum = 60% * 40,567).
As a result, since the beginning of 2023, the total amount of pensions of Kazakhstanis has increased.