Regional Wage Coefficient

in the USSR, one of the most important levers for the interregional regulation of wages by the state, and an indicator of the relative increase in the workers’ earnings. The regional wage coefficient is designed to compensate the working people for additional expenditures associated with special conditions in the region where an enterprise is located, as well as to provide material incentives that will attract the necessary labor resources to various regions.

In setting regional wage coefficients, regional differences in the physical structure of consumption and in prices are taken into consideration. For the regions of the Far North, the wage coefficient is 1.4–2.0 (1.6–2.0 for the northeastern regions, 1.4–1.8 for the northern regions of Siberia, and 1.4–1.5 for the northern regions of European Russia), and for localities on a par with the regions of the Far North, 1.3–1.6 (1.4–1.6 in the Far Eastern regions and 1.3–1.4 in other regions). The regional wage coefficient for the southern regions of the Far East and Eastern Siberia is 1.2–1.3; for particular regions of Middle Asia, 1.15–1.3; for the Northern European USSR, 1.15–1.2; and for the southern regions of Western Siberia, the Urals, and Kazakhstan, 1.15.

In addition to the regional wage coefficients, there are special coefficients of up to 1.4 for workers and office employees in desert, arid, or high-mountain localities (at least 1,500 m above sea level).

Regional wage coefficients for sectors and, in a number of instances, for particular enterprises and organizations are established by the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on Labor and Wages and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, with the participation of the State Planning Committee (Gosplan of the USSR) and the Ministry of Finance. The coefficient does not result in new wage rates and salaries, and it is applied only to earnings or to a portion of them (a maximum of 300 rubles per month).

To improve the supply of personnel for economically promising regions, provision has been made for increasing wages by introducing regional wage coefficients for workers and office employees of enterprises and organizations located in Western Siberia, the Urals, and certain regions of Kazakhstan and Middle Asia, for which coefficients have not been set. In addition, the current wage coefficients are to be raised for workers in some sectors in a number of regions in the Far East and Eastern Siberia.