A New Type of Social Assistance Launched in Ukraine: Who Will be the First to Receive Payments

The experiment concerns recipients of four main types of social support: low-income families, single mothers or fathers, large families, as well as children whose parents evade alimony payments or cannot support the child.

Starting in July, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine is introducing an experimental project for basic social assistance for recipients of social payments. This new program consolidates several existing types of assistance into one payment, simplifying the process of obtaining them.

The amount of basic social assistance is 4500 hryvnias and is calculated individually for each family. The number of family members and their status determine the amount of the payment, taking into account various coefficients for pensioners and persons with disabilities.

Estimates suggest that a family receiving 6500 hryvnias per child could receive 9000 hryvnias when transitioning to basic social assistance. Another family, where the father receives the minimum wage and the mother is raising three children, could receive 14010 hryvnias instead of the previous 10500 hryvnias.

Recipients of social assistance have the option to choose between the basic payment and retaining existing forms of assistance. The final amount of basic social assistance is defined as the difference between the total amount for all family members and the total income of the family.

As part of the pilot project, the Pension Fund of Ukraine will collect feedback from recipients for further changes to the basic social assistance system. If the project proves successful, it will be expanded to other categories of social support recipients.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy began experimenting with basic social assistance in July, which consolidated several types of social payments into one, simplifying the procedure for obtaining them. The program will be available to four groups of the population, including low-income families, single mothers, and large families in general. The amount of assistance will be calculated individually for each family, taking into account various coefficients for different categories of recipients.