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Guaranteed minimum income to be increased

By Editor. 23.09.2009

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Guaranteed minimum income benefit in Latvia will be increased from LVL 37 (EUR 52.6) to LVL 40 (EUR 57) for adults and to LVL 45 (EUR 64) for children,starting from October 2009.

The Guaranteed minimum income benefit (GMIB) paid by local governments for pensioners and people with disabilities is set at LVL 90 (EUR 128) per month. Welfare Ministry explains that municipalities are free to issue binding regulations that set the GMIB for pensioners, people with disabilities and poor families also higher than the GMIB defined by the state. As the economic situation in the country continues to grow worse, the number of households that qualify for receiving the GMIB has increased.

Starting from mid-summer 2009, the nine-month limit for receiving GMIB has been changed: households and individuals are eligible for receiving the social support for as long as necessary. It is expected that in 2009 the number of underprivileged persons in Latvia could reach 144,376 (around 6.4% of the total population in Latvia) and the number of GMIB receivers could amount to 57,750 or 2.5% of the population.