Bulgarian government to pay 40 leva ‘Easter bonus’ to pensioners with incomes below poverty line
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s Cabinet agreed on March 28 2018 to pay an “Easter bonus” in April of 40 leva (about 20.45 euro) to each of the country’s more than 1.2 million pensioners who are below the 321 leva poverty line.
Just more than 56 per cent of pensioners in Bulgaria are below the poverty line, according to official statistics.
The payment will cost state coffers about 50 million leva, Borissov said.
Payments will begin with the issuing of monthly pensions on April 4. Bulgaria, a country where the majority of the population declare themselves to be adherents of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, celebrates Easter Sunday on April 8, a week later than the Protestant and Roman Catholic Easter.
Over the past decade or so, it has been fairly routine practice for a succession of governments to pay “bonuses” at Easter and Christmas to the lowest-income pensioners.
