Social Assistance Programme to be reformed in Moldova

Chisinau, 13 April /MOLDPRES/ - The cabinet of ministers today gave a positive notification to a draft law which provides for the reformation of the Social Assistance Programme, through which the state backs the vulnerable categories of residents, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.    
The legislative initiative is set to improve the Programme, so that it covers the disadvantaged families which presently do not benefit from social aid and, at the same time, optimizes the providing of the social assistance, through a more targeted directing and through its use as a mechanism of stimulating the employment of vulnerable people able for work.  
Presently, there are about 120,000 extremely poor families in Moldova and only 26 per cent of them benefit from support on behalf of the state. Once the reform implemented, the Social Assistance Programme will cover a larger number of disadvantaged families.    
The reform is also set to enhance the weight of the families with children who have access to the Programme, through the increase in the monthly minimally guaranteed income for each child and of the ceiling of eligibility of the incomes for the employees with children. According to data by the National Statistics Bureau (BNS), every second out of the 20 per cent poorest households of Moldova is a family with children. At the same time, the weight of the families with children out of all beneficiaries of social assistance is only 37 per cent.     
At the same time, the reform proposes the gradual cutting of the quantum of social aid and the limiting of the duration of the presence of unemployed people in the Programme. Thus, decision-makers have the goal to stimulate the employment of people able for work, who are beneficiaries social assistance. Presently, the weight of jobless people included in the Programme is pretty high - almost 8,000 out of those 28,200 unemployed people registered at the National Employment Agency in 2021 were beneficiaries of social assistance in December, last year.  
Besides, the reform introduces some other changes: differentiation of the size of the monthly minimal guaranteed income in the case of people with disabilities, depending on the degree of disability established.  
Photo: Government