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11/03/2015 7 267 44 Reading time: 20 min. Rating:

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: Konstantin Bely

Do you need a pension? The more absurd this question seems to you now, the more surprised you will be after carefully reading this article. Because in it I will harshly break the stereotypes that have been formed in our society over the years. I strongly recommend that you think about what you are about to read, analyze and draw conclusions. Try not to think in stereotypes, but rely solely on facts.

Pension is not beneficial for anyone

Most people are very sensitive to their pension, and strive to make every effort to ensure that the pension is as high as possible. This is especially true of pre-retirement age: there people, sparing no effort, try to work as much as possible in order to receive as much salary as possible, which will then be taken into account in calculating the accrued pension.

Pensions occupy a very important place in the electoral programs of all political parties and presidents. Whoever talks more about raising pensions traditionally gets more votes in elections, because the main electorate is pensioners. Pensions can be considered as one of the key indicators of public confidence in government. If you like the size of your pension, if pensions are regularly at least indexed to the level of inflation, everyone is happy, then “the government is good.” If pensions were suddenly raised, that would be an absolute joy! If pensions are frozen and they do not change for a long time, then “the government is bad.” It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

After all, almost no one even thinks about the fact that a pension, in its essence, brings only losses to the vast majority of people. Yes, yes, you heard right: the very fact of receiving a pension is unprofitable for a person. In other words, if people did not receive a pension at all, they would have more money. Now I will prove it to you.

If you didn't receive your pension on time

There are situations in life when a person fails to receive a pension on time. What happens in this case? Can he get it another day or will he have to wait until next month? We asked these questions to the head of the department of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation in Otradny, Nina Petrovna BASHLOVINA. “A person can miss the deadline for paying a pension only if he receives it through the post office,” she answered. – When received through Sberbank or other banking organizations, the pension is calculated on the 14th of each month. You can withdraw money at any convenient time. And pension payments through the post office begin on the 5th. If a person missed the payment deadline, he can contact the central post office on the 22nd day of each month inclusive; On the 23rd, pension statements are closed, and all unpaid money is returned to the Pension Payment Center. If a person was unable to receive a pension by the 23rd, the money will not be lost. Next month he will receive payment for both the current month and the past. You can do this on time or come to our office on the 5th and get permission to receive your pension early. And only if a person for some reason does not receive a pension within 6 months, its accrual is suspended. A separate story concerns sick people undergoing long-term hospital treatment. They also cannot receive their pension on time. In this case, they should issue a power of attorney for a close relative and have the document certified by the head physician. Attention! Pension payments this month will begin on November 3. S. Ugleva

Don't make the audience laugh! Where have you seen at least ONE pensioner forget about his pension? They've been lining up at the post office since the morning to get their pension. And if you go to the hospital, then everyone knows perfectly well that your pension will not be lost. Why are they hanging out on the Internet on the Otradny 63 website?

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Fact 1. During his life, a person deposits more money into a pension fund than he later receives from it

So, to decide whether you need a pension, first I suggest you do a little math. Now we will calculate how much a person contributes to the pension fund during his life, and how much he later receives from there. I will make calculations based on the example of the current situation in Russia; in other nearby countries, things are the same, or even worse. To simplify the calculations, let’s assume that there is no inflation or devaluation (I will make an adjustment for this a little later), that pension legislation does not change throughout a person’s life, and we will take into account the current official average statistical indicators.

So, today in Russia, contributions to the pension fund amount to 22% of cash payments received. For working citizens, these contributions are paid by the enterprise.

The average salary in Russia is 30,000 rubles. From this we find that on average a person monthly contributes 6,600 rubles to the Pension Fund (22% of 30,000). If we multiply this amount by 12, we get that a person contributes 79,200 rubles to the Pension Fund per year .

Further, the average person works (and, accordingly, pays contributions to the Pension Fund) for approximately 40 years . Moreover, many continue to work (and pay contributions) even at retirement age.

Thus, we find that over 40 years a person contributes 3 million 168 thousand rubles to the Pension Fund !

Now let’s calculate how much pension he will receive for his efforts.

The average retirement age in Russia is 57.5 years (women retire at 55, men at 60). And the average life expectancy is 70 years . Thus, it turns out that on average a person receives a pension for 12.5 years .

The average pension in Russia is 11,600 rubles . From here we get that in 12.5 years a person will receive 1 million 740 thousand rubles in pension .

Over the course of his life, the average person in Russia contributes 3,168,000 rubles to the pension fund, and receives 1,740,000 rubles from it, that is, 1.82 times less! So is a pension necessary?

Now let’s calculate how long a person must live just to “recoup” his contributions to the Pension Fund, that is, to receive from there exactly the same amount as he contributed there during his life. To do this, he needs to live 80.5 years , and according to statistics, 90% of the country's inhabitants do not live .

90% of Russian residents receive less from the Pension Fund than they contribute. Do you need a pension?

But now let's remember that in reality we have inflation, and money invested somewhere should not only be returned to its owner, but also generate some kind of income that at least covers the level of inflation. An instrument that gives approximately the same profitability and is accessible to everyone is bank deposits. Let's calculate how much a person would need to put in a deposit with a yield of 10% per annum and capitalization of interest in order to receive the same amount as he receives on average from a pension fund by the time he retires. For the calculations, I used an independent deposit calculator (you can recalculate using any or using the compound interest formula).

So, it turned out that in order to receive 1,740,000 rubles in 40 years , you need to make a one-time investment at 10% per annum with capitalization... only 32,300 rubles ! That is, the amount of contributions to the Pension Fund for less than 5 months !

Fraudsters at the post office

I am a pensioner, every month on the 4th I receive a pension. My pension is brought to my house by the postman. It turned out that I could not receive a pension because I was away. Previously, there were such moments and the next month they brought it to me immediately 2 months in advance, which is what I planned this time too. 06/04/13 the day came to receive the money; they brought me a pension for only one month. I asked the question where was the pension for last month on 05/04/13, to which the postman answered that the money for this month was sent back to the pension fund and they have not yet received it. At that moment, I did not worry and did not suspect anything, since the postman was a pleasant woman whom I had already known for more than 15 years. As usual, they let me sign the statement and gave me some additional papers, as it turned out later they are called one-time receipts. Another month passed, I repeatedly went to the post office and was told that there was no money, then that they couldn’t find me in the statements, then I went to the pension fund, explained the situation and they told me the number of the statement which was the transfer of money from the pension fund to the post office. When I came back to the post office and said the number of the statement, they found it and it turned out that these were new papers that the postman had not brought me before where I signed! It turns out that I was misled and given documents to sign that I signed. I remember exactly that they gave me more documents to sign than usual and the signatures were actually mine, but I only received the money at one time. Tell me what should I do, where should I complain? As I understand it, this is article 159, since they slipped me a statement for 05/04/13 where I put my signature thinking that it was a statement for 06/04/13

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Dear Vitaly! If you think that the postman has committed fraudulent acts regarding your pension, simply submit a statement to the police or the prosecutor's office, in which you state everything that you wrote and ask that the perpetrators be prosecuted. Your application will be reviewed and an appropriate legal assessment will be given.

Fact 2. Because of a pension, a person spends his whole life significantly overpaying for all goods and services

Due to the need to pay contributions to the Pension Fund, absolutely all goods and services become more expensive. How does this happen? It’s very simple: the cost of a product or service is calculated based on the income and expenses of the enterprise that sells it. And contributions to the Pension Fund are just one of the significant expense items. The higher the costs, the higher the cost and the final cost paid by the consumer.

The prices for services of enterprises, in which the most significant share in the cost structure is occupied by the employee wage fund and, accordingly, all deductions from this fund, incl. and contributions to the Pension Fund. These are housing and communal services enterprises, education, healthcare, and other budgetary enterprises, the services of which people often use on a regular basis. Without contributions to the Pension Fund, the services of such enterprises could be cheaper by almost the amount of these contributions (for Russia - by 22%).

Fact 3. There are no pensions in China

And not only in China, but also in other countries: India, Thailand, etc. It would be more accurate to say that there is no old-age pension - the kind that everyone expects in our country, and there is no common pension fund to which all people pay contributions. Only certain categories of citizens receive pension payments there and pay contributions (significantly lower than ours), but there are no compulsory state old-age pensions for everyone.

At the same time, China has been the leader in economic growth dynamics for several years. And the average life expectancy in China is higher than in Russia - 73 years. Coincidence? Or did China just think in time: is a pension needed?