State Duma approved increase in minimum wage

UFA, 9 November 2017. /Bashinform News Agency, Galiya Nabieva/. The State Duma approved in the first reading a bill on a gradual increase in the minimum wage to the subsistence level by 2019.

According to the draft law, since January 1, 2018, the minimum wage is set at 9489 rubles. As RBC explains, the minimum wage will be raised in two stages: on January 1, 2018, it will amount to 85% of the subsistence minimum, and from January 1, 2019, the minimum wage and the subsistence minimum should be equal. In the second quarter of 2017 it was 10 329 rubles.

The Russian president instructed to equalize the minimum wage and the subsistence minimum for a period of two years. The head of the Ministry of Labor Maxim Topilin believes that it will cost 55.7 billion rubles to raise the minimum wage to 90% of the subsistence level for employees of state and municipal institutions only.