Rosstat recorded a decrease in the number of Russians with low incomes

According to Rosstat, in January-September 2023, the number of Russians with incomes below the poverty line amounted to 16 million people, or 11.1% of the population, which is lower than the same indicators in 2022 (17.2 million people and 11.8% of the population). In the third quarter, poverty continued to decline—14.8 million people, or 10.2% of the country’s population, remained below the poverty line. At the same time, the impact of rising wages on reducing the number of poor, according to expert estimates, was three times greater than the effect of social payments, but the reduction in poverty had virtually no effect on the level of income distribution among ten percent groups.

Based on the results of the first three quarters of this year, the poverty level in Russia has decreased again, as follows from the latest data from Rosstat. To calculate the number and share of the poor, Rosstat uses the cost of the consumer basket for the fourth quarter of 2020, taking into account accumulated inflation; in January-September of this year it amounted to 14.2 thousand rubles. Although from 2021 the Ministry of Labor operates with a new concept of “poverty line”, it is calculated using the same methodology of Rosstat in 1992.

On average for January-September this year, the number of Russians with incomes below the poverty line amounted to 16 million people, or 11.1% of the population, which is lower than the same indicators in 2022 (17.2 million people and 11.8%). Directly in the third quarter, the number of poor people amounted to 14.8 million people, or 10.2% of the country’s population – also by 0.5 million people and 0.3 percentage points (pp), lower than in the third quarter of 2022 . The intra-annual dynamics of the number of poor in 2023 traditionally showed a seasonal decline caused by the concentration of many payments towards the end of the year: in the first quarter, there were 19.6 million Russians with cash incomes below the poverty line, or 13.5% of the population, in the second – 15.7 million , or 10.8%. As Vice-Rector of the Higher School of Economics Liliya Ovcharova notes, at the end of the year the figure will most likely also be lower than in 2022 (at the end of the year – 9.8% of the population). “We can assume that it will decrease by another 0.5–1 percentage point,” she notes.

At the same time, as follows from Rosstat data, the process of reducing inequality, which the agency recorded in 2022, has stopped (for more details, see Kommersant of March 3). Thus, if in the third quarter of 2022 the share of the poorest 10% of the population (9.9 thousand rubles per month) accounted for 2% of the total cash income, then by the end of the third quarter of 2023 the figure did not change. At the same time, for the 10% of the population with the highest incomes (from 149 thousand rubles per month) it increased by 0.3 percentage points, although the incomes of the poorest in annual terms increased by 18.2%, showing the highest rates growth among all decile groups (in second place is the group with incomes from 83 thousand rubles per month (plus 15%), in third place – from 50 thousand rubles per month (plus 14.8%).

The rapid growth in income of the poorest segments of the population, as noted by the press service of Rosstat, became possible thanks to targeted social payments, and first of all, a single benefit that the Social Fund pays to families with children with incomes below a certain threshold (for more details, see “Kommersant” of December 1). At the same time, as TsMAKP expert Igor Polyakov notes, the increase in wages was more important in the context of a shortage of personnel: “In the third quarter, out of a 4.9% increase in real cash income, 4.5 percentage points were paid for wages, social payments, including pensions – 1.4 percentage points, for business income – 0.7 percentage points.” As a result of the combination of these factors, the nominal average per capita cash income of the population amounted to 49.5 thousand rubles, increasing over the year by 10.7%, and compared to the second quarter – by 3.1%, while real incomes increased in the third quarter of 2023 by 4.9%, real disposables – by 5.1% year on year.

Anastasia Manuilova