The main part of disability benefits in Russia is provided in the form of labor disability pensions through the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. Apart from disability pensions which comprise the main part of social security for disabled people, there exists a complicated system of payments for industrial accident injuries and temporary loss of ability to work administered by two other nonbudget funds — Social Security Fund and Compulsory Medical Insurance Funds. The system provides a whole range of payments for those who are not eligible for labor disability pension, such as disability pensions to civil servants, social pensions to disabled without employment record and disabled from childhood. Yet, recipients of labor disability pension comprise the majority of official disabled population; therefore, this group is primarily addressed in the research hereafter.

The Law on Labor Pensions defines three categories of disability pension recipients depending on the degree of health damage, Category III corresponding to the most severe disability. A special commission of medical experts defines disability status based on the statement from applicant's medical institution. It is reconsidered every two years for the Category III, and annually for Categories I and II, except for those individuals who have reached official retirement age or have irreversible anatomical defects. The amount of pension is determined from combined information on the category of disability and earnings history. Starting from 2002, labor disability pension consists of three parts replicating the old-age labor pensions: base (minimal amount equal for all recipients), insurance (linked to individual earnings and employment record), and funded (paid from individual accumulated reserve). The size of base disability pension is set at the level of old-age base pension for the recipients of category 2; recipients of the 3rd and 1st category receive respectively 200 and 50% of the base old-age pension.

In addition to the general pension amount, up to January 2005 the system provided all disabled people with supplementary in-kind benefits. The most valuable and popular benefits included the rights to obtain free medicines, free transportation, and discounts on utilities payments; altogether these provisions nearly doubled real incomes of the disability pensioners.