Starting January 1, 2027, Kazakhstan will change the procedure for assigning 14 types of social benefits. When assessing need, income, property, and family composition will be taken into account. The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Population explained which benefits will be retained and in which cases benefits will not be assigned.

At a briefing at the Central Communications Service, Askarбек Yertayev presented the methodology for determining the level of social well-being, approved on September 30. According to the minister, its task is to change the approach to providing state assistance: to take into account not only the formal right to a benefit, but also the real material situation of the family.

– State support should be provided, first of all, to those who cannot independently meet their needs. We are moving from assigning benefits based on formal status to assessing the real need of the family, – emphasized the head of the MLSPP.

As the minister explained, the assessment will consist of two components – material well-being and social sustainability. The first includes 59 indicators across six areas – income and employment, property, transport, business, agriculture, and loans. Data will be obtained from government information systems, so citizens will not have to collect additional certificates.

The second component allows for taking into account circumstances that affect the family's situation. According to Askarбек Yertayev, when assessing social sustainability, the presence of children, elderly people, and persons with disabilities will be taken into account. The higher the dependency burden, the lower the social sustainability indicator of the household. Thus, the same income does not necessarily mean the same level of well-being.

Askarбек Yertayev clarified that the object of assessment will not be the individual benefit recipient, but the household as a whole. The calculation will include the income and property of family members, relatives, and other persons living at the same address. Special rules are provided for taking into account the children of single parents, including in cases of separate residence.

As the minister noted, such a procedure should eliminate the artificial separation of affluent families in order to receive state payments.

The methodology provides for five categories of well-being. At the same time, to classify a family into category A or B, the simultaneous presence of at least two signs of affluence is required. A single indicator, for example, a certain income level, is not in itself a sufficient basis.

According to data presented by the head of the MLSPP, category A includes households with an income of 356,000 tenge or more per person, several residential properties with a total area exceeding 120 square meters per person, commercial real estate, a large business, or significant land and agricultural assets. The list also includes luxury cars from 11 brands: Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, Maybach, Maserati, Aston Martin, McLaren, Lotus, and Rivian. The year of manufacture of the vehicle is taken into account in the assessment.

According to the data cited by the minister, 329,000 households, or five percent, belong to category A.

To explain the application of the criteria, Askarбек Yertayev gave an example of a large family of six people. The income per family member is 458,000 tenge. The family owns a house and an apartment with a total area of 780 square meters, a 2023 Bentley car, and a commercial premises with an area of 150 square meters. According to the minister, four signs of high affluence were identified in the household.

Despite the fact that the family receives benefits for large families, starting in 2027, benefits assigned based on need will not be provided to them.

Category B, according to Askarбек Yertayev's explanation, covers affluent, economically stable families. Among the criteria are income from 305,000 to 356,000 tenge per person, several real estate properties, and cars from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Genesis, and Toyota Land Cruiser. Medium-sized business, commercial transport, agricultural machinery, land plots, and livestock numbers are also taken into account.

For a family of four, the income criterion ranges from 1.2 to 1.4 million tenge per month. In total, about 1.05 million households, or 16 percent, belong to category B, the minister reported.

Askarбек Yertayev emphasized that the reform will not affect all benefits. Of the 36 types of payments financed from the republican budget, the principle of need will apply to 14. These are certain benefits for families with children, disability and care payments, survivor benefits, funeral benefits, and special state benefits.

According to the minister, families in categories C, D, and E will retain the right to these payments, while for categories A and B their assignment will be limited. The remaining 22 types of benefits will continue to be paid under the previous rules.

Askarбек Yertayev also listed the payments that will be retained regardless of the household's well-being. These include payments to veterans of the Great Patriotic War, combat participants, victims of nuclear testing and political repression, as well as payments provided for work in harmful conditions and to certain categories of persons with disabilities.

In addition, regardless of the family category, benefits will be retained for children with disabilities, persons with disabilities of groups I and II, full orphans, and awarded mothers of many children receiving an old-age pension. Askarбек Yertayev emphasized that these guarantees will also apply to households classified in categories A and B.

The minister separately addressed payments related to the birth and care of a child. According to him, for women who have participated in the social insurance system for two years or more, the care payment from the State Social Insurance Fund will be retained regardless of the family category. The need assessment will apply to the lump-sum benefit for the birth of a child, financed from the budget.

For non-working women, both payments – the lump-sum benefit at birth and the monthly childcare benefit up to one and a half years – are assigned from the republican budget.

As the speaker explained, in this case both payments will be provided based on need; families in categories C, D, and E will retain the right to them, while households in categories A and B will not be assigned them.

At the same time, the maternity benefit will remain unchanged and will not depend on the family's well-being category.

Another change concerns working mothers. Askarбек Yertayev reported that if a woman returns to work before the child reaches one and a half years, the social care payment will continue to be transferred until the end of the established period. Thus, returning to work will not be grounds for early termination of this payment.

According to the minister, the main instrument for implementing the new approach will be the Digital Family Map. Currently, the system contains information on 6.2 million families, received from more than 30 government information systems.

As Askarбек Yertayev explained, data is updated daily, and household composition and well-being levels are reviewed monthly. If a family's income decreases and it moves into a needy category, the right to a suspended payment will be restored at the next review. Consequently, the assigned category is not permanent and may change along with the family's material situation.

At the briefing, the head of the agency also announced an online calculator that will allow citizens to preliminarily assess the well-being of their household. According to him, the service is planned to be made available to the public in the near future. At the same time, Askarбек Yertayev warned that calculators previously circulated on social media do not correspond to the approved methodology.

Linaра SAKTAGANOVA
Astana