New ‘Safety Benefit’ Introduced for Families to Receive Support

The government approved a package of amendments to the ‘Law on State Benefits’ and related regulations in its meeting today, July 11, which will change the benefits system.

The rationale for the decision states that a new family assessment system will be launched, evaluating various characteristics that determine the conditions for assigning and distributing benefits aimed at improving family living standards, while also introducing models for phased overcoming of poverty.

Currently, the benefits provided include family benefits, social benefits, and urgent assistance, which are established based on the family’s insecurity assessment system. One of the main issues with the current insecurity assessment system is its low specificity, often leaving truly impoverished families outside of the support.

The new family insecurity assessment system will be based on the family’s total monthly income, which will be calculated using a hybrid method applied in countries with a significant scope of shadow economy. To assign hard-to-verify incomes, an approach evaluating assets and living conditions will be employed.

It is anticipated that the families whose available incomes do not exceed a predefined threshold will be entitled to receive insecurity benefits. In line with the goal of eradicating extreme poverty, the threshold will be set in a way that includes families whose monthly income per calculated member is below a percentage of the value of the food basket. In other words, the new benefits system will primarily target the extreme poor.

At the same time, specific additional amounts will be ensured for families based on their care group. These include families with no working-age members or those where each working member is burdened with 3 to 5 dependents.

The new assessment system also aims to implement targeted and specific programs in other areas—such as education and healthcare—through the establishment of different thresholds based on the system.

Among the proposed changes, it is particularly suggested to rename the “family benefit” to “safety benefit.” The new provisions will stipulate that families recognized as socially deprived will be entitled to receive safety benefits if their monthly income per calculated member is below the threshold defined by the government for that year and if the main amount of safety benefits calculated for the family exceeds the minimum amount set for that year.

The amount of safety benefits will be determined by adding an additional amount to the basic insecurity benefits. The draft law will also remove “social benefits” from the ‘Law on State Benefits’ since it overlaps with family benefits. Additionally, one-time emergency assistance for childbirth and the death of a family member will be removed as they coincide with other forms of assistance (one-time childbirth benefit and burial benefit).