Russia's Elderly Await 13th Pension as Inflation Idea Falters
The idea of introducing a 13th pension for all Russian pensioners has again come to the forefront. The initiative was once more put forward by the leader of the A Just Russia party, head of the Duma faction Sergei Mironov. According to him, the bill on an additional annual payment was resubmitted to the State Duma in early December 2025, as has been happening for over ten years in a row.
Mironov emphasizes that this is not a one-time action, but an attempt to compensate for the systemic lag of pension payments behind the real inflation rate. According to the idea of A Just Russia, each pensioner should receive a bonus by the New Year equal to their old-age insurance pension, but not less than 1.5 times the subsistence minimum. At last year«s prices, such a payment would have been about 23 thousand rubles (approximately $230 at current rates). Mironov»s logic is clear: for many of us, especially the elderly, New Year«s expenses become a serious burden. They need to set the holiday table, buy gifts for grandchildren, all from a meager pension (and in Russia, according to the results of 2025, it officially amounted to just over 25 thousand rubles, approximately $250 at current rates).
It sounds, of course, beautiful and, pardon the pun, just. But the main question is where to get the money from.
«The idea is beautiful, I fully support it. But such an initiative has already received a negative conclusion from the government, because it requires serious additional financial expenditures,» Yaroslav Nilov, chairman of the committee on labor, social policy, and veterans« affairs, told MSK1.RU. »Although I don«t know what financial mechanism will be proposed by A Just Russia this time.»
Nilov says that the idea of a pre-New Year payment to pensioners is well known to him not only conceptually but also in practice: back in 2020, on the instructions of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he himself participated in developing a bill on an additional payment equal to the monthly pension before the New Year. Moreover, it concerned all categories of pensioners—recipients of insurance, social, military, and other pensions.
«But we proposed not a 13th pension, it was a pre-New Year pension payment,» Nilov recounts. «This proposal has been repeatedly considered by the State Duma. The adjusted text was sent to the government, but the government filter, unfortunately, was not passed.»
However, Nilov does not lose optimism that a pre-New Year payment for pensioners in Russia may still appear. There is a compromise path: if the implementation of the initiative in full is impossible, it makes sense to consider the option of targeted support—for certain categories of pensioners. Nilov hopes that such a compromise on the possible appearance of a 13th pension can be found by A Just Russia during upcoming consultations with the chairman of the government Mikhail Mishustin.
«Moreover, we are constantly improving pension legislation,» says Nilov. «We have restored the indexation of pensions for working pensioners. Additionally, we revised the very format of indexation so that it doesn»t happen that those who receive little do not feel this indexation. On the president«s instructions, it was done this way: first the bonus, and then the indexation. To avoid, so to speak, the absorption of the bonus, so that the pension amount practically did not change.»
Independent economists, of course, are also fully in favor of additional pensions. Especially considering how price increases affect pensioners: inflation expectations for Russians without savings (and pensioners typically fall into this category) already exceed 15%, calculated the Central Bank. This is how specific people actually feel the price rise, not the officials of Rosstat and the Ministry of Economy, whose inflation for the entire last year «did not exceed» 5.6%. The economic reality, it turns out, is three times worse than what is reported.
«The idea of increasing payments to the elderly fits perfectly with the realities of the modern Russian pension system, which is unable to do this on its own,» says Magomet Yandiev, associate professor at the economics faculty of Moscow State University and former deputy of the Moscow City Duma. «I will even take the liberty of supplementing this initiative with a proposal to pay pensioners quarterly bonuses for achieving certain pensioner-production indicators (for example, based on the number of times they take grandchildren to children»s clubs and sections), as well as one-time bonuses timed to significant events (professional holiday, birthday of the last employer, grandchild started school, grandchild graduated school, etc.). As they say, if you«re not let in through the door, you have to climb in through the window. That»s how it is with the pension system.«
Jokes aside. But Yandiev assesses the financial capabilities of Russia«s pension system quite seriously. He notes that in current conditions, the absolute priority for the state remains military spending, which means that finding additional funds for a large-scale expansion of pension payments will be extremely difficult.
«But one might think this issue concerns the »generators« of initiatives,» Yandiev remarks sarcastically.
As can be seen, support for the idea exists in parliament as well, but the final decision still hinges on the question: is the state ready to redistribute resources in favor of elderly citizens here and now.
