MOSCOW, January 16 (RAPSI) – Lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party have submitted a bill to the State Duma proposing to set the national minimum wage rate at 100 ($3) rubles per hour from January 1, 2015, bill co-author Yaroslav Nilov told RIA Novosti.

As a result, the minimum monthly wage should reach 16,000-17,000 rubles ($400-$500).

According to the bill, the minimum hourly wage will not be used to calculate temporary disability, pregnancy or childbirth payments. These and other obligatory social security payments will be based on the minimum monthly wage, which amounted to 5,554 ($166) rubles on January 1, 2014.

Head of the State Duma Labor and Social Policy Committee Andrei Isayev (United Russia) said that it is more important to increase the minimum monthly wage to the subsistence level than to approve a minimum wage rate per hour.

The lawmakers say that the current subsistence wage of slightly more than 7,000 rubles does not correspond to ILO recommendations, which set the minimum wage rate per hour at $3.

The rate is considerably higher in most European countries and ranges between 18.70 and 5 euros in Germany, Spain, Slovenia and Croatia.