Матеріальне забезпечення безробітних в УСРР у 1920-х рр.

Abstract

The article analyzes the Soviet Communist party leadership’s organizational measures for the introduction of social insurance against unemployment during the New Economic Policy period. It overviews instituted unemployment benefits, detailing their duration and amount. The article covers how financial aid provided by labor exchanges and insurance bodies. The status of payments and the dynamics of how unemployment benefits were distributed among the various occupational groups were also monitored. Based on the study’s results, the author concludes that the NEP transition, which was accompanied by the abolition of the mandatory obligation to work, thus opening new mechanisms of labor market regulation through the balance of supply and demand, was marked by mass unemployment. In addition to market conditions, the increase in the number of the unemployed was significantly influenced by: decrease of state-owned industry and lackluster development of privately-owned factorues; mechanization of production; military demobilization; agrarian resettlement, proletarianization of cities, etc. Along with industrial workers, who lost their jobs due to production dwindling, unskilled workers were at risk, women and children among them. While developing measures to combat unemployment, the Soviet leaders were forced to adopt various forms of social protection created in other countries. Among those, the financial support of the unemployed through payments, and financial benefits through social insurance funds were the primary forms. However, unemployment insurance varied depending on social class. The insurance legislation was primarily aimed at securing proletarian personnel and had a clear class bias. In most cases, the refusal to provide benefits was guided not by the principle of freedom of labor, but by the “duty” of obligation to work in favor of the Soviet state. Unemployment benefits did not differentiate depending on the employee’s current wage, but were deducted from the national average. In addition, the amount of benefits depended on the territory of residence of the unemployed, and what occupational groups and categories workers belonged to. The amount of financial aid also depended on continuous work experience and union membership.