Armenia’s Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Arsen Torosyan, stated during a joint session of parliamentary standing committees on labor and budgetary affairs that further increases to pensions are currently not feasible due to the country’s fiscal limitations, Sputnik Armenia reports.
Torosyan referred to Finance Minister Vahe Hovhannisyan’s statement made on October 29 about pension increases, which he said has been widely misinterpreted over the past two days. He emphasized that the concern is not that higher pensions would harm pensioners, but that excessive increases could destabilize the national budget.
“It’s being manipulated in reverse, as if raising pensions would hurt pensioners. That was never the message. What we’re saying is that current fiscal capacity allows us to raise pensions only to this extent and in this way,” Torosyan said, referring to rebate mechanisms tied to pension disbursements. “We believe that as of now, nothing more is possible. This is also a tool to stimulate higher tax collection,” he added.
The minister noted that about 350,000 pensioners currently participate in the rebate program linked to cashless payments. By the end of next year, this number is expected to rise to 410,000–420,000. The average rebate amount will increase by 3,000 to 4,000 drams compared to the current level.
According to Torosyan, these changes will bring pensions to nearly 90% of the consumer basket value, though full coverage is not yet achievable.
The 2026 state budget allocates approximately 993.017 billion drams to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
