It was supposed to be 2,000 PLN for everyone. It will be without limit and without income criterion. Unanimous decision

At the end of April, the Sejm Social Policy and Family Committee on Wednesday unanimously supported the draft amendment to the act on pensions and annuities from the Social Insurance Fund, which assumes increasing the funeral allowance from PLN 4,000 to PLN 7,000 . The changes are to enter into force on January 1, 2026.

According to the project, the benefit will be subject to indexation from March 1 in a situation where inflation exceeds 5 percent in the previous year. As explained by Sebastian Gajewski, Deputy Minister of Family, Labor and Social Policy, the lack of annual indexation of the benefit is to prevent an increase in the prices of funeral services.

The draft amendment also regulates the principle of settling the so-called earmarked allowance .

• According to the bill , it may be awarded to a person who has covered the costs of a funeral if he or she is not entitled to a funeral allowance after the deceased.

- An example would be a situation where a mother is uninsured because she works under a contract for specific work, has a child who is small and uninsured. After the death of such a child, she will not be entitled to a funeral allowance - said Gajewski.

• According to the bill, the special purpose allowance will also be granted in the event that the person who covered the funeral costs is entitled to a funeral allowance and incurred extraordinary costs related to the funeral, which were difficult to predict and impossible to cover from the funeral allowance. The deputy minister indicated that this is, for example, repatriation of a body from abroad.

Gajewski emphasized that the special purpose benefit from social assistance will be available without an income criterion and without a limit on the amount (neither to the amount indicated by an absolute number nor to the amount of the income criterion). Previously, it was planned that the benefit would amount to PLN 2,000.

- When it comes to the amount of targeted benefits - because they are social assistance benefits - the body granting such a benefit will be able to determine its amount , adequately to the situation of the applicant - said the deputy head of the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy.

In the discussion on the project, Adrian Pokrywczyński from the Association of Polish Counties said that the changes had not been consulted with the local government side. He added that the project imposes new tasks on the communes related to the earmarked allowance.

- Now, there is a special allowance for a funeral, but it is linked to the income criterion. Here, the introduction of this form of regulations changes the situation and we are dealing with the fact that the administrative procedure will be slightly longer - Pokrywczyński noted.

Gajewski responded that the only entity that "has a legal obligation to bury anyone" is the commune. As he explained, the government is not introducing new benefits, it is only expanding and modifying the conditions for granting the special-purpose allowance that currently exists.

He also emphasized that the project was submitted to the Joint Government and Local Government Commission, which did not submit an opinion on it within the statutory deadline. At the same time, he added, the project was the subject of a meeting of the health care and social policy team of the joint government and local government commission on May 13, 2024. The deputy minister noted that the comments of local government officials were discussed in the consultation report made available on the Government Legislation Center website.

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Source: PAP. Prepared by AN

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