Since 2005, Kazakhstan has introduced a system of compulsory social insurance, which provides an additional level of social security for working citizens represented by the State Social Insurance Fund” (Fund).
During the years of formation of the system, the number of its participants in the country reached almost 7 million people, in the East Kazakhstan region - 255 thousand people.
With the adoption of the Social Code, on July 1, 2023, social insurance coverage was expanded to a new category - individual assistants accompanying persons with disabilities of the first group with difficulty in moving, and from January 1, 2025, the system will cover individuals receiving income under civil contracts .
The financial resources of the system are formed from social contributions paid from their own funds by employers for employees, and social contributions are also paid for themselves by individual entrepreneurs and persons engaged in private practice.
The legislation establishes a fixed monthly rate of social contributions in the amount of 3.5% of the employee’s income, with certain restrictions - at least one minimum wage (MW) and no more than 7 MW. That is, with 85,000 tenge in 2024, the monthly minimum amount of social contributions will be 2,975 tenge, and with the maximum allowable income for calculating deductions - 595,000 tenge, 20,825 tenge are subject to payment to the Fund.
Regularity, timeliness and completeness of payment of social contributions are very important, since the size of the payment directly depends on this.
In 2023, in the East Kazakhstan region, 35.3 thousand people received social payments from the Fund totaling 23.8 billion tenge.
Let us dwell on the types of social payments. The system provides for two long-term payments for disability and loss of a breadwinner; they are paid from the Fund in addition to a similar state social benefit assigned from the budget. In 2023, 3.5 thousand working citizens with disabilities and 3.1 thousand families who lost their breadwinner received such payments. Taking into account the two-time increase in the assigned amounts of these payments in 2023, in annual terms by 23%, more than 945 million tenge were allocated from the Fund for these purposes.
From January 1, 2024, the amounts of long-term payments for disability and loss of breadwinner, by decision of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, were once again increased by 7%.
Current information systems make it possible to make recalculations, in connection with an increase in the size of payments, automatically, that is, without the need for citizens to provide any additional documents.
The next social payment in case of job loss from the Fund is assigned to the system participant from the day of registration as unemployed. Please note that from January 1, 2023, the income replacement rate used to calculate the amount of payment was increased from 40% to 45%. In 2023, 6.3 thousand people in the region received this payment in the amount of 1.4 billion tenge.
Social benefits in case of loss of income due to pregnancy and childbirth, adoption of a newborn child (children) from the Fund are assigned for all days of maternity leave. In 2023, 7.3 thousand expectant mothers received this one-time payment in the region in the amount of 11.8 billion tenge.
Also, during this period, 14.9 thousand people in the region became recipients of social benefits in case of loss of income due to child care; 8.1 billion tenge were paid to them from the Fund. The duration of this payment - the period of paid child care from one to one and a half years, was increased from January 2023.
Thus, in the region, 90% of payments were made in support of motherhood and childhood.
Conditions are increasingly being created for seeking services “without leaving home.” Composite services have been implemented on the “one window” principle. For example, you can apply for payment for loss of ability to work through a medical and social examination immediately upon establishing disability; for payment for loss of work - when registering as unemployed at a career center or through the portal “Electronic Labor Exchange” enbek.kz. If you already have registration with the career center, then the “electronic government” portal egov.kz is available for access. Note that this portal is a platform for applying for any of the social benefits, provided that the information systems have the necessary information about the service recipient. The initiative to develop electronic services is supported by second-tier banks; in the mobile applications of some of them you can apply for payments for child care and job loss.
With the introduction of the Digital Family Card, it has become relevant to assign payments in a proactive form; only the consent of the applicant to exercise the right to receive payment is sufficient, while the dialogue between the service provider and the service recipient occurs through the exchange of SMS messages sent to a mobile phone number.
At the end of 2023, about 60% of social payments from the Fund