He described Russian social policies as "virtual", while addressing a national conference convened on Social Worker's Day, June 8.
"If we take up social policies as a whole, we see we are within a virtual world-we cannot judge public incomes precisely enough, and we have failed to get targeted welfare going," he said.
The minister quoted alarming figures. Twenty million are unemployed or self-employed out of Russia's total eighty million able-bodied population. Those twenty million "have no contacts with the state, whatsoever".
Government-financed companies and offices are employing 18 million, civil servants and law-enforcement officers accounting for 3.6 million of these.
Hired workers presently make 52 or 53 million, "and they all need wage rises," said Zurabov.
15 million Russians have an official status of disabled persons. He thinks a mere three million of them should be really entitled to that welfare status. "This country can't have fifteen million disabled-that's an implausible figure."
So-called "social disabled persons" make a majority of the 15 million total, said the minister. The term concerns retired employees with health problems, who spare no efforts to obtain the disability status as it entitles them to welfare privileges and monthly grants to add to their pensions, he explained.
Those people are flooding all welfare offices and medical social expertise bureaus to hamper their work, Zurabov complained.
Pensions may soon be coming from the federal purse. He does not rule out the prospect.
Meanwhile, they are paid through the federal Pension Fund, with an independent budget of its own. The fund is short of money-hence the prospective reform. The Pension Fund's financial plight may make it a major receiver of federal allocations even next year.
However, "a social insurance network cannot come up as permanent receiver of federal budget allocations. Otherwise, it will have to make part of the federal budget," the minister reasoned.
"I am not sure what practical arrangements are ahead-but that certainly will be one of the roads we shall take."
As for flat social taxation, "its reduction was meant to promote wage rises and increase tax payments. We have been only partial success with that, for the time being."
The minister said he had been dead set against social tax reduction.
"We are in for a deficit of several hundred billion rubles," he warned. R28.41/$1 is the Central Bank of Russia rate for today.
