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MoldovaWelfare
Although Moldavia's official standard of living had
long been
below the average for the Soviet Union, there were two
mitigating
factors. The rural character of the country accounted for
many
households receiving goods (mainly food) as well as cash
wages.
In addition, Moldavian industry was based on consumer
goods
(including textiles, consumer appliances, and processed
agricultural goods), making them relatively plentiful
throughout
the republic (see
table 10, Appendix A).
The hostilities in Transnistria and the turmoil
surrounding
the demise of the Soviet Union were the major reasons for
the
falling standard of living in Moldova in the early 1990s.
The
outbreak of hostilities in Transnistria interrupted not
only the
flow of fuels and goods from former Soviet republics
through
Transnistria into right-bank Moldova but also cut off
valuable
inputs (for example, fertilizer) that were produced in
Transnistria. These, in turn, indirectly affected such
indicators
as food consumption, a sign that everyday life was
affected (see
table 11, Appendix A).
In 1991 Moldova set up the Social Assistance Fund (to
provide
assistance to the needy) and the Social Security Fund
(SSF). The
SSF is composed of the Pension Fund, the Social Insurance
Fund,
the Unemployment Fund, and the Reserve Fund. Funding for
the SSF
comes mainly from a payroll tax and from direct budget
transfers.
The Pension Fund includes old-age pensions (age
fifty-five
for women who have worked at least twenty years, and age
sixty
for men who have worked for twenty-five years), pensions
for
invalids, pensions for women who have raised three or more
children, military and special merit pensions, and
pensions for
people of retirement age or for people who receive
disability
pensions yet continue to work.
In early 1994, approximately 900,000 people (about 20
percent
of the total population) received pensions. Legislation
increased
both benefits for dependent children and the minimum
pension in
1992, and a law was passed to index benefits to inflation,
but it
had not been fully implemented by the end of the year.
Many felt
that passage of this law would add significantly to the
demands
on an already overburdened budget.
Data as of June 1995
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