State Social Protection Fund boosts social support payments in January

10 February 2021 13:00 (UTC+04:00)

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By Ayya Lmahamad

The State Social Protection Fund under the Labor and Social Protection Ministry has increased social support payments by 11.9 percent in January, the ministry reported on February 9.

In January, the Fund paid AZN 486.9 million ($286.4M) on pensions, benefits and targeted social assistance, which is by AZN 51.8 million ($30.4M) or 11.9 percent more than in the same period of 2019. In addition, social support covered 2.3 million people.

Since 2021, pensions have been increased by 11.4 percent in accordance with the annual growth rate of the average monthly salary last year. Earlier, Azerbaijan increased the average monthly salary of hired workers by 11.4 percent year-year-on in 2020, bringing the figure to AZN 707.3 ($416).

Azerbaijan continuously takes measures to provide social support to the vulnerable groups of the population. Thus, Azerbaijan’s self-employment program under the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection covered 12,000 people in 2020 and is expected to cover 16,000 people in 2021.

Additionally, the ministry is taking measures to provide social support to martyrs’ families, war veterans and civilians affected by the Armenian aggression. In this regard, the State Social Protection Fund has provided social support payments, including monthly presidential pension and allowances to over 7,000 family members of 2,837 martyrs of the second Karabakh war. As of January 1, presidential pensions for people of this category increased by 66.7 percent. In addition, around 9,100 apartments and private houses and 7,150 cars were provided to this category of citizens so far. Moreover, in the post-war period, the ministry has involved over 1,700 citizens of these categories in the part-time self-employment program. Some 900 of them were members of martyrs’ families.

Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad