Research of the State Policy of Ukraine Regarding the Formation of a Living Wage as the Basis for Ensuring Social Guarantees

The state social policy of Ukraine is aimed at providing social guarantees for the population. The basis for the formation of social guarantees is the living wage, which is established and regulated at the legislative level. The article examines and identifies the main existing and predicted trends in the dynamics of the legislatively established and actual living wage in Ukraine. According to the results of the study, it was found that the mechanisms of state policy of Ukraine regarding the formation of a living wage as the basis for ensuring social guarantees are insufficiently effective. In this regard, the following measures and recommendations are proposed: modernize and regularly update the minimum set of the consumer basket, ensure its compliance with the real needs of the population, both at the physiological and social levels; improve the methodology for determining the cost of a set of consumer basket; to introduce the European experience, which is that the object of the establishment of the living wage is not individuals, but the average family; include taxes in the living wage for able-bodied persons; ensure an increase in the size of the legislatively established subsistence minimum, laid down in the State Budget of Ukraine, to the actual size of the living wage, which is determined by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.