UrBC, Moscow, September 12, 2016. Russia’s Labor Ministry is currently working on proposals to further increase the minimum wage amount, Prime refers to Labor Minister Maxim Topilin as saying.

‘As regards the minimum wage, I’d like to point out that the benchmark got raised by 26% this year, and some of the constituencies and employers are already reporting that this is causing a painful increase in their spending. Still, we intend to keep presenting our proposals on further floor wage increase as our team are working on these,’ the Labor Minister said at a meeting dedicated to job safety issues that was coordinated by Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.

Vice Premier Olga Golodets announced earlier that the wage floor would go up from 7,500 RUR a month to 8,800 RUR on January 1, 2017. The last increase was adopted in Russia on July 1, 2016. As early as late August, however, businesses started asking the Economics Ministry to freeze the amount at the earlier 6,200 RUR till the end 2018, as they were not coping with the dramatic increase in tax payments.

The Russian Government intends to raise the minimum wage to the figure that equals the actual minimum income level for survival by 2020. In the second quarter of 2016, this income level was officially determined as 9,956 RUR per capita a month.