The demonstrators are protesting Mr. Putin’s pension law, introduced in June. The law is meant to save the Russian treasury $15 billion a year by 2024 by gradually increasing the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men, and to 60 from 55 for women. At first glance, the reform doesn’t seem dramatic enough to stir such passions. Russian pensions are skimpy anyway, averaging around $220 a month. (The poverty line is $171 and average salary $592
Life expectancy for Russian men is under 67, not even two full years past the new, higher-than-ever retirement age. Many men fear they’ll literally be worked to death. “With this pension reform, with everything pushed back, I feel like I’ll never get out,” a rail-way worker said last month.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Russian Pensions and the Risk of War, October 17, 2018
Keep in mind, the life expectancy at age 65 in the US is twenty years and has grown from fourteen years since 1940.
Putin needs the money to produce more weapons of war while the wealthy oligarchs live like kings.
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