Kazakhstan: Astana wants to review social security payments for the poor

 

22.09.2025

 

Article published on the rus.azattyq.org website

 

Kazakhstan’s President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has accused his Government of encouraging a “culture of social dependency”.

 

The country’s Cabinet of Ministers has begun reviewing the rules for providing targeted social assistance, i.e. payments to low-income citizens, taking income and expenditure into account, as well as bank loans and deposit amounts. What exactly is being planned and how have people reacted?

 

The narrative of “inflated benefits”

 

“Why work when you can receive regular payments, including targeted assistance, for nearly every member of your family? In other words, instead of making sensible decisions on social issues, the Government has, in effect, been encouraging a social dependency culture and fraud for at least 15 years”, said Tokayev during his state of the nation address earlier this month.

 

The targets of his criticism were those on targeted social benefits and the system that determines their distribution. According to Tokayev, these benefits are “artificially inflated” and “divert funds away from real investment in the building of schools, hospitals, transport infrastructure and much more”.

 

The imbalance between Kazakhstan’s treasury revenues and expenditure is a fertile topic for economic discussion. Last year, budget revenues in this oil-producing country totalled 13.5 trillion tenge (nearly $25 billion at current exchange rates), while expenditure was twice as high – 24 trillion tenge ($44.3 billion). In order to cover the deficit, the Government once again dipped into the National Fund, which accrues proceeds from the sale of the country’s resources and was created to accumulate funds for future generations. Last year, a record sum of 6.3 trillion tenge ($11.6 billion) was drawn from it, which is almost twice the amount of income (which totalled 3.8 trillion tenge, or $7 billion).

 

With the budget deficit growing, the Government is reviewing its spending commitments and focusing its attention on the social sector. Every fourth tenge spent by the State last year went on social welfare (5.5 trillion tenge (ten billion dollars) was set aside for this purpose).

 

Reducing standard rate pensions and grants would be unpopular and not very feasible. As one of its cost-cutting measures, the authorities have decided to freeze the national minimum wage at 85,000 tenge ($157 from 2024). Kazakhstan’s Finance Minister Nady Takiev explained that the decision was dictated by the “current economic situation”.

 

Now, following the President’s address, the rules for granting Targeted Social Assistance (TSA) are next in line for review.

This year, more than 110 billion tenge ($203 million) has been set aside in the budget for TSA payments. According to Government data, as of 1 August this year, more than 260,000 people (around 1% of the population) or 48,000 families were receiving TSA.

 

The procedure for issuing TSA payments has been revised several times over the past few years. In February 2019 following a nighttime fire in a temporary shelter in Astana in which five young sisters left unattended by their parents died, protests broke out across the country by mothers demanding improved social support and whose actions led to Government concessions. In six months, the number of TSA recipients went up from 77,000 to 1.5 million.

 

The State begins to take stock

 

“More and more people prefer not to work, or even worse hide their income in order to receive TSA”, said Tokayev six years ago, when he called for changes to its distribution to ensure “transparency and fairness, as well as encouraging people to work, rather than lead an idle lifestyle”.

 

Following his speech, in 2020 the so-called unconditional and conditional TSA were introduced, with the former intended for families with disabled members unable to work. For other poor people, assistance is conditional, i.e. able-bodied family members have to register at their local labour exchange and take up the jobs offered or learn new skills. If they refuse, the family would lose its payments.

 

What is the Government proposing?

 

The Government is now seeking to change the rules again. In early September, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection published a consultation document, proposing a review of the TSA allocation system. The explanation given was that the assistance provided was “insufficiently targeted due to a failure to take full account of citizens’ actual income and spending”.

 

The Ministry pointed out that there were “weaknesses” in the TSA system: information from State databases was not taken fully into account, with no automated exchange of information between State bodies. This leads to errors being made in determining need, as well as refusals and unjustified awards.

 

The Ministry also noted that, in some cases, families would deliberately underreport their income or register property in another person’s name in order to receive TSA.

 

According to the Ministry’s data, last year, 3,131 families provided false information, 420 hid their income and nearly 6,000 refused to have their finances assessed (around 4% of all recipients). The Government’s review is now proposing to cover not only income but also expenditure, as well as loans and deposits when assigning TSA payments.

 

The consultation document states that Kazakh citizens will be denied TSA if their quarterly loan payments (excluding mortgages) are double the national subsistence minimum.

Commenting on these proposals in the margins of the Mazhilis, the Labour Minister, Svetlana Zhakopova, quoted figures based on a family of three: if a loan exceeds three million tenge, the monthly payment would be 300,000, “which is above the poverty threshold”. “Therefore, the family would not be entitled to TSA payments. Is that fair? I think it is”, said Zhakopova. “The logic is simple: you can’t take out a loan and cover it with targeted social assistance”.

 

The Ministry also proposes monitoring spending transactions on bank accounts. If an applicant spends more than the poverty threshold per month for each family member, they won’t be able to claim TSA.

 

Deposits will also be taken into account. TSA payments will not be made if a deposit exceeds 200 monthly calculation values (currently 782,000 tenge or $1,450). Savings deposits on house purchases will not be taken into consideration.

 

However, the authorities expect that the new system, if approved, may well prove unpopular with those who have taken out bank loans or microcredits, thereby reducing  their motivation to save. Perhaps those applying for TSA will deliberately avoid saving any money so as not to lose their benefit entitlement and citizens in general may prefer to switch to cash, the Government notes.

 

The Ministry also plans to take car ownership into account, with a family denied TSA payments if it has more than two vehicles. Exceptions will, however, be made for large families and those with children with disabilities who will be allowed to have one or two cars.

 

In the consultation document, the Ministry refers to the experiences of other countries – Italy, Germany, Canada and Australia – where social assistance is assigned based on income, property, all assets and credit debt. The deadline for comments on the text is 24 September.

 

What do Parliament and the experts say?

 

The Ministry’s proposals have not yet been submitted to Parliament but are already finding favour among some deputies. “Revising TSA rules is a sign of the times. After all, many people receive these benefits by exploiting loopholes in current legislation. For example, they enter into fictitious divorces, or hide their official income when seeking employment, which highlights the need for a review of the effectiveness of social sector financing”, said Senator Nauryzbay Baikadamov. Another Senator, Marat Kozhaev, said there were weaknesses in the social security system which encourage fraud and believes the process should be regulated.

 

This view is also shared in economic circles, albeit with some reservations. An economist Maksat Khalyk believes there should be a general discussion to explore social assistance mechanisms to ensure that those who are really in need don’t miss out on State support.

 

The number of social benefit recipients has increased which stress the need for a review of the format and the creation of a system that ensures payments reach those in greatest need, said Khalyk.

 

Taxation policy expert Gulnur Sholpankulova fears that focusing on the credit and debt history of those applying for TSA could adversely affect many vulnerable social groups. Most Kazakh people have a low level of financial literacy, don’t know anything about budget planning or how to work out their expenses, which leads them into debt, she says.

 

People can take out loans in several places in one day without thinking twice about it. They don’t stop to consider how the loans will be repaid and as a result end up unable to service them. There are also those who take out loans at the request of friends and relatives. These factors should also be taken into account, she says. The Government is trying to cut costs and is reviewing benefits in order to save as much money as possible. But it also needs to consider how to ensure that spending cuts do not worsen the situation already affecting socially vulnerable groups.

 

Sholpankulova also says that poor Kazakh citizens are already suffering the effects of inflation. According to official figures, the country’s annual inflation rate in August was more than 12%. Upcoming tax reform and an increase in VAT next year are expected to put up prices of goods and services. That being the case, there is little point in talking about social dependency in Kazakhstan. The payment amount is usually negligible on which it is very difficult to survive, she says.

 

Support for socially vulnerable groups is provided not only in Kazakhstan but also in other parts of the world. Fifty-five to sixty thousand tenge is not a huge amount of money. It wouldn’t be enough to feed a family of six and I don’t think that people receiving 60,000 tenge can be regarded as freeloaders either. It’s just assistance to get by, says the tax expert.

 

Perhaps there is a dependency culture in Europe where people are paid $700 and can sit at home if they don’t want to work hard and earn more money. But benefits here are ten times lower, says Khalyk.

 

Darina Zhunusova, a researcher at the Paperlab Sociology Centre, says it is unfair and wrong to accuse Kazakhs of dependency. Official unemployment in the country is less than five percent, but one in five are classed as self-employed – finding ways of accessing benefits becomes a survival strategy, she says.

 

“Tokayev behaves as if benefits are inherently a bad idea. On the contrary, social support is a vital source of help for vulnerable groups. The problem is that they have been poorly designed, with no consideration for the consequences of human behaviour, without control mechanisms and without any understanding of how people actually live (surprise, surprise!). This is a dangerous narrative: instead of acknowledging policy design flaws, people are once again being called “lazy”. This shift leaves society mistrustful of social institutions and moves the conversation away from the quality of governance to the moral character of its citizens”, wrote Zhunusova.

 

Information note

 

TSA is a payment for citizens living below the poverty line, with the amount dependent on a family’s income and composition and must be no less than 70% of the national subsistence minimum. For TSA calculation purposes, the subsistence minimum is 46,228 tenge.

 

Source: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/astana-hochet-peresmotret-predostavlenie-sotspomoschi-bednym/33534162.html