It’s always easier to understand with a real person. So let’s look at the case of “pensioner Navalny.”
The increase in the retirement age planned by Putin is not some abstract “bad government decision,” but a very concrete robbery of every individual.
We are being told that a pension is some kind of government charity. A gesture of goodwill. A favor.
It is very important to understand clearly: that is not true. Pension fund contributions are paid out of your salary. And those contributions are very large. People often say, “It’s not you paying them, it’s the employer.” That’s nonsense. For the employer, your salary costs exactly this much: take-home pay + income tax + social contributions (the largest of which is the pension contribution). If these taxes and charges did not exist, salaries would be higher. This is money charged against your salary; it is your money.
We decided to make a series of videos explaining to people the scale and brazenness of this theft.
And today we have a completely average person. His name is Alexei Navalny, and he is 42 years old.
He has always earned an average salary and paid contributions from it (all data according to Rosstat, Russia’s federal statistics agency). His life expectancy is average too.
An ordinary Russian man. He will retire at 65 under the new rules and die at 66.5.
So what does the math on his pension look like?
Be sure to take part in our project for coordinated voting against the politicians and parties that support raising the retirement age. Sign up, leave your city information, and in elections at any level we will send you a list of those who need to be crushed at the polls, and we will support any candidates running against them.
We will run a major campaigning effort and make many explanatory videos. I will go to the Pension Fund and get the real numbers so I can show everything not using the example of an “average Navalny,” but a completely real one.
A separate task is to explain that this “reform” is, above all, a robbery of women. They will suffer the most from the government’s plans.
I do not rule out at all—and am in fact almost convinced—that a little two-step maneuver has been planned here: after some time, “good Putin” will scold the “bad government” and revise the plan. The retirement age for men will be 63 instead of 65, and for women 60 instead of 63. Those are the real targets.
Don’t let yourself be fooled by this elementary trickery. For a successful pension reform, we need: - a fight against corruption; - proper dividend payments from state-owned companies into the budget; - a reallocation of budget spending away from military and police expenditures and toward healthcare.
On July 1 (June 30 in Irkutsk), protests against raising the retirement age will take place in 26 Russian cities. In most places we are organizing them; in some, we are joining existing efforts. All the rallies are officially authorized. Go here, find your city, and make sure to come. Otherwise, first they will rob you, and then you will work until you die.
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