Good year of the Ministry of Family

“Three pillars of our programme, that were filled with successive implementation of commitments every day our work, is family, development and security,” Prime Minister Beata Szydło said at the conference summing up the first year of rule of Law and Justice.

As she emphasised, this year, the government paid the greatest attention to family matters. “It was our greatest commitment and expectation of Poles, who said: we want to live in dignity, we want to earn enough to be able to support our families, we want to be able to use medical services, we want to have a good school, we just want to be able to function normally,” the Prime Minister said.

“The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy is a ministry whose goal is, among other, to create conditions for a comprehensive family support in building its safe existence,” said Minister Elżbieta Rafalski, summarising last year in the Ministry of Family.

She noted that one of the elements of this support was passed within less than a hundred days of the government's operation, the Act on state aid in rising children, that is the government's “Family 500 plus” programme. She also noted that this programme has a universal nature. In rural areas, 1 million 360 thousand, i.e. around 63% of all children, were covered by this aid. In rural-urban communities, it was almost 60%, i.e. around a million children. In the whole country, the programme covers more than half of children under the age of 18.

“The results of the programme, which are already noticeable, is the decline in the number of people benefiting from social services of nearly 130 thousand.The projections show that thanks to the 'Family 500 plus' programme, the risk of poverty among children under the age of 17 will drop by almost half, from 23% to 11%, and by 2050, the population of Poland may be 1 million 700 thousand higher than predicted by earlier forecasts,” said Minister Rafalska.

Minister Elżbieta Rafalska also mentioned other measures related to social policy taken in the MFLSP, such as the liquidation of pathology in the labour market by eliminating the so-called first day employment syndrome, introduction of the minimum hourly wage and increase in the minimum wage.

“For my Ministry, this year means 8 acts passed, 37 resolutions of the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy issued, 5 resolutions of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers.We are still working on 11 bills and 16 regulations,” the Minister said.

“It has been a good year.We implemented solutions that have fundamentally changed the situation of many Polish families, employees, seniors,” Minister Elżbieta Rafalska concluded.