Reducing Poverty through Employment and Structural Reform is Kazakhstan’s Social Spending Strategy

Kazakhstan is making efforts to improve living standards. Official statistics reports the decline of the national poverty rate as of 2024 to 5%, down from 46.7% in 2001 and the increase of the real wages by 21%.
The country doesn’t rely on direct cash transfers for poverty alleviation, but on employment creation and integration into the labor market. To achieve this goal, they have created a digital platform that tracks labor trends, maps investment flows, and forecasts employment potential – the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection’s Innovative Navigator of Projects.
Currently,1,383 investment projects aimed at creating over 220,000 new jobs, with a combined value of 73.7 trillion tenge, are monitored by the platform. They have already materialized 30,660 of these jobs as of 2025.
Generally, over 250,000 citizens have joined the labor force, including 115,900 subsidized jobs, 66,600 open-market placements, and 62,900 through private initiatives.
It became possible due to short-term professional training programs with guaranteed job placement for graduates and relocation grants.
4.7 million vulnerable citizens pensioners persons with disabilities and large families got over 6 trillion tenge in 2015 due to a new digital platform built around a vulnerability scoring system.
Also, Kazakhstan continues annual indexation of pensions and benefits for over 4.7 million recipients. The basic pension will have increased to 70% of the baseline standard by 2027 with the maximum reaching 120 % due to a phased reform launched in 2023. It made pensions of 2.3 million retirees grow by a 28% in 2023. They expect the pension replacement rate to reach 45.5%, aligning with International Labour Organization (ILO) standards, by 2025.
In 2024 a new minimum wage calculation methodology was approved in Kazakhstan. As the base of the system is median salary levels and labor productivity, it improves wage predictability and balance employer capacity and worker needs.
A special social payment for individuals working under hazardous conditions was introduced in 2024.
Kazakhstan’s social sector also is influenced by structural reforms. Notably, they expect 45 new investment projects to generate nearly 20,000 jobs, with 98 additional projects in 2026 planned to add 24,900 positions, and 56 projects in 2027 slated to create 27,700 jobs in 2025.
Even in spite of crisis periods, the growth of real household incomes have increased since 2010 attained 80%. Expanding social expenditures has underpinned this. The sum of consolidated budget expenditures between 2010 and 2025 rose from 4.5 trillion to 30.3 trillion tenge. The increase of social protection spending was in 6.7 times (6 trillion tenge). The share of social spending was consistently approximately 20% of the national budget.
Kazakhstan’s data-driven, employment-oriented social policy offers a potential model.
Under the circumstances of demographic shifts and global uncertainties, Kazakhstan’s aim is not just a reduction in poverty, but attainment of structural prosperity.

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