In 2023, almost UAH 900 billion was spent on social support for Ukrainians – Minister of Social Policy Zholnovych
In 2023, the budget of the Ministry of Social Policy reached almost UAH 900 billion, which is the money spent on social support for Ukrainians.
According to Censor.NET, with reference to Ukrinform, this was reported by Minister of Social Policy Oksana Zholnovych during a press conference.
"If you look at the budget of the Ministry in '23, it amounted to almost UAH 900 billion. This is almost $25 billion. For comparison, this is the budget of the whole of Georgia or Iceland. This is the money we spent on social support for our citizens," the minister said.
She also noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 23,000 civilians have been injured, almost 9,000 people have been killed, and 15,000 have been injured.
In addition, almost 3 million Ukrainians have been displaced to Russia, and as of now, about 1.5 million of our fellow citizens are staying there. About 5 million citizens have been displaced within Ukraine's borders, and about the same number have been abroad since the beginning of the great war.
Almost 2 million more Ukrainians have remained in the temporarily occupied territory since February 24, 2022.
"Given this amount of human capital loss, as well as rising inflation and increasing poverty, the number of people in need of support has increased significantly. Unfortunately, the number of people who can fill our budget by paying taxes to cover relevant social expenditures has significantly decreased," Zholnovych said.
According to her, today, in addition to almost 11 million pensioners, the state supports about 9.5 million Ukrainians with various types of social assistance.
"These are new challenges for us. They lead to completely different approaches and motives to shape social policy and maximize the involvement of people in social activity, economic independence, and preservation of their efficiency and sustainability, so that we simply save our country," the minister emphasized.
