Social-Cultural and Housing Fund

Social-Cultural and Housing Fund 

in the USSR, one of the economic incentive funds. The social-cultural and housing fund is set up at enterprises (associations) and in organizations in order to give production workers an incentive to increase efficiency. The funds are financed from profits. The size of the fund depends on the projected production indicators, as well as on the indicators attained. The projected (as well as the actual) size of the fund for the ministry (department) as a whole and for each enterprise (association) is set forth in the five-year and annual plans as a percentage of the material incentive fund.

The fund is used primarily to satisfy the most pressing social needs of the workers. At least 60 percent is used to build and repair residential buildings, preschool institutions, dispensaries, and dining halls and to finance joint construction projects by enterprises for housing and facilities of social and cultural use. The fund also finances programs concerned with physical culture and public health (improving medical services, financing accommodations in sanatoriums and houses of rest). The fund can only be used for certain purposes, and all expenditures are based on estimates jointly ratified by the enterprise’s management and trade union organization. Up to 10 percent of the fund may be centralized in industrial associations and ministries.

The social-cultural and housing fund is an important source of finance for the measures outlined in the social development plans of production collectives.

B. E. PEN’KOV