The name of the Labor and Social Issues Committee has been changed from social issues to welfare. After the meeting of the Civil Contract party, Nikol Pashinyan changed the name while presenting the candidates for the heads of parliamentary committees:
“The main idea came during the development of the pre-election program of the Civil Contract,” said Nazeli Baghdasaryan, candidate for the head of the Committee on Labor and Welfare.
The word welfare is often seen in the Civil Contract party program in the context of wealth, where there is bread, there is life, viewing the state as a tool for welfare. Soon this word will also appear on the sign of a state agency. The Ministry of Labor and Social Issues will also be renamed the Ministry of Labor and Welfare.
“We are changing not only the title but also want to change the mission and content of this agency,” Baghdasaryan noted.
What is the new philosophy? “When we change the philosophy, we want to not only put social issues at the center but also give people opportunities, abilities, and skills so that they can live well.”
According to the candidate for the head of the Welfare Committee, the dependency of people on various benefits began in the 1990s. Now they want people to not live on benefits but to be educated, work, and live well.
There is no mention of the Ministry of Welfare in the government’s five-year program, but there is a promise to halve poverty. This means that this year the poverty rate in Armenia should be below 13.5%. The Statistical Committee has so far presented a picture of 24, and there is no hope that poverty will decrease by half. According to the latest official figures, 21.7% of the population in Armenia, more than 600,000 people, are poor, and 18,000 live in extreme poverty. That is, they spend up to 29,000 drams per month.
The picture of poverty is much heavier in several regions, reaching 43% in Shirak.
“In Armenia, poverty exists only due to the lack of skills to not be poor or their scarcity among those who are poor,” Pashinyan stated.
The reason for poverty is not that there are no jobs, Prime Minister Pashinyan explained at the end of last year, but simply people are not skilled, not educated in time. “If work does not provide a person with welfare, what should be done? We need to return to education, to the development of work skills.”
“Does he have the education to demand education?” - in this man's opinion, only education will not lead to welfare, jobs and decent wages are also needed. He believes that “we are still far from welfare, but if the name is changed as an aspiration, that’s good.”
Citizens we asked are not against it; welfare sounds better than social. There are also convenient synonyms: convenience, well-being, it could be the Ministry of Abundance, as long as they do their job.
By the way, the Statistical Committee also presents the picture of poverty from the perspective of deprivation of the population. Every third resident of Armenia cannot heat their home in winter. 80% cannot afford to take at least one week off. 65% do not have money to borrow 45,000 drams in case of an unexpected expense. About 50% cannot even afford a meat dish a day. A picture that is very far from welfare, especially from abundance.
