The head of Armenia`s Ministry of Social Labor commented on the abolition of funeral benefits in the country

ArmInfo. Funeral allowance funds will be redirected to increasing pensions in Armenia. Armenian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Arsen Torosyan announced this in a conversation with journalists on October 1, commenting on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement about his intention to abolish funeral allowances due to their alleged "ineffectiveness."

According to Torosyan, this decision was the result of numerous discussions. "This issue has always been up in the air. We came to the conclusion that these funds should be used to increase pensions. Of course, this allowance will be paid to certain groups of citizens. We are talking about socially vulnerable citizens - that is, those who were in the previously existing "Paros" system and are in the current system of assessing insecurity. These funds will be used to increase pensions, which we consider much more important than providing this type of benefit to all groups," the minister noted.

According to him, calculations have shown that the minimum pension will be increased from 46,000 to 47,000 drams (that is, by 1,000 drams - ed.). In other cases, Torosyan noted, the increase will be calculated using a special formula. "When calculating the length of service for assigning a labor pension, an increase of 500 drams is envisaged. An increase is also expected for citizens receiving military pensions. "Another 5.5 billion drams are planned to be allocated for these purposes in addition to the planned increases," the head of the Ministry of Social Labor and Social Protection announced.

According to Torosyan, all of these changes are planned to be introduced on January 1, 2027.

As a reminder, the universal funeral benefit was previously 200,000 drams. It is noteworthy that the government approved a bill to almost substantially increase the salaries of civil servants starting January 1, 2027, without regard for pensioners. Thus, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in particular, if approved by parliament, will receive a salary of 2,662,000 drams ($7,353) instead of the current 1.5 million ($4,143). The salaries of deputy prime ministers will amount to 2,163,000 drams ($5,975) instead of 1,289,000 ($3,560). The ombudsman and the prosecutor general will receive up to 1.8 million drams ($4,965), the speaker of parliament and the chairman of the Constitutional Court - up to 2.4 million drams ($6,620), and deputies - up to 1.4 million drams ($3,862). For this purpose, 25 billion drams ($69 million) will be allocated from the state budget. That is, in fact, the current authorities of Armenia have funds in the state budget to increase their own salaries, but they do not have the funds to increase pensions for pensioners by 1,000 drams, and the funds must be taken from funeral payments.