Deputy Governor Hopes To Raise Retirement Age
Published: October 26, 2011 (Issue # 1680)
Deputy City Governor Sergei Vyazalov is considering upping the retirement age for St. Petersburg residents, Fontanka reported Tuesday.
Vyazalov, who is in charge of the city administration’s financial bloc, asked the Health Committee to devise a plan to include elderly city residents in the workforce to increase economic effectiveness.
“We are considering raising the retirement age in Russia. I wanted to ask if St. Petersburg residents would be able to take an active part in the economic life of the city,” Vyazalov said at a city administration meeting.
Yury Scherbuk, head of the city’s Health Committee, said the issue about raising the retirement age was critical.
“From moral and ethical points of view, it’s too early to make such a decision. Economically it’s most likely possible and justifiable. However, it should be done very gradually and the retirement age could be increased by one or two years at a time, not more,” Scherbuk was quoted by Fontanka as saying.
Vyazalov said the current financial situation in the country left almost no other way out of the situation. Without such measures, the social burden on the budget will be too heavy in a few years when the number of elderly people in the city is estimated to total 30 percent.
Deputy Governor Lyudmila Kostkina said that many city residents continue to work actively even at an older age. Out of 1.2 million retirees in the city, 700,000 still work. Many of them work until they are 70 years old, she said.
In addition to pensioners who continue to work hard until a late age, St. Petersburg is also home to at least 249 people — 217 of them women — over the age of 100.