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Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs is planning to start paying old age pensioners who live alone additional support of 115 euros per year.
Estonia planning to pay support to old age pensioners living alone
22nd June 2015, 18:00
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The ministry has proposed paying old age pensioners who live alone according to the population register and whose pension is below a certain limit additional support of 115 euros a year. It would not be taken into account whether the person is working or not as well as other social support being paid to the person.
The support would be paid out once a year, in September. The support would not be taxable.
Another version of the proposal is that the additional support would be paid to old age pensioners whose total income -- including pension, salary and other sources of income -- are below a certain limit and who live alone. Besides, whether a person really lives alone or not would be ascertained by the local government.
According to Statistics Estonia about 103,700 people received old age pension in 2012. If the same number of people would get additional support of 115 euros a year, the additional expenditure would be around 10 million euros per year.