Draft bill #11383 of June 27, 2024
Cosponsors: MPs Valerii Hnatenko and Volodymyr Moroz from the Restoration of Ukraine group
Status: sent for review to the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on Social Policy and Veterans’ Rights Protection
Who is affected: children with disabilities and persons who take care of them
Summary:
- MPs propose to increase the amount of social assistance for a child with a disability under the age of 18 to 100% of the subsistence minimum for a child of the corresponding age. Therefore, if the child is under 6 years old, the assistance amount will be 2,563 UAH, for children aged 6 to 18 years — 3,196 UAH. Currently, the assistance amount is 1,653 UAH (which is 70% of the subsistence minimum for persons who have lost their ability to work)
- the bill establishes that the caregiving allowance for a child with a disability under the age of 18, assigned to an able-bodied person who cares for the child and does not work, must be at least the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons, established by the government budget law for the corresponding year (from July 1, 2024 — 5,152 UAH).
What is right: the amount of social assistance for a child with a disability and the caregiving allowance in some cases are lower than the subsistence minimum, and the bill proposes to correct this.
Currently, these payments are counted together. The bill proposes to separate them so that the assistance for the child is allocated for the child with a disability and the caregiving allowance is allocated for the person who provides the care and does not have other sources of income.
Why this is important: the Ministry of Social Policy is developing the draft strategy for the demographic development of Ukraine until 2040. Support for persons with disabilities is one of the priorities of this demographic strategy.
Additional information:
Points Considered podcast: Demographic strategy: how it will help and how not to fail it.