MOSCOW, January 15 (RAPSI) – The provisions that the minimum wages and salaries are to be at or above the subsistence income of the employable population need to be fixed in the Constitution, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in his address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday.

In any case and in any situation, the President noted, the state social commitments must be met across the whole national territory; therefore he believed it was necessary to directly institutionalize the provision that the minimum wage in Russia could not be below the subsistence level of the able-bodied citizenry in the Constitution in addition to the current legislation.

According to the President, the principles of respectable retirement benefits, including regular indexation of pensions, also needed to be guaranteed by the Constitution.