The cost of living will be recalculated: will it help the poor?

From 2026, the government wants to calculate the cost of living per capita (PM) in a new way, based on the level of inflation. Such a bill from the Cabinet of Ministers has already been submitted to the State Duma. The authors of the initiative believe that this innovation will make it possible to quickly respond to inflation risks, regardless of the income situation in the country.

Today this figure is calculated depending on the median income of the population - as 44.2% of the median. This methodology has not been used for long, but has already brought good results to you and me. After all, incomes have been growing at an accelerated pace in the last two years - clearly faster than inflation. So, starting next year, the minimum calculated from the median will increase by 14.8% compared to this year and will amount to 17,733 rubles per capita - against 15.4 thousand this year.

Now it is proposed to change the rules of the game and determine the PM depending on the level of inflation. It would seem that this is fair: by how much prices have risen, by how much the PM rises. But this indicator is not very objective. There are three inflations at once: the one forecast for the year, which is calculated by the government’s monetary bloc. Then, the official one from Rosstat. Well, and the actual one, which we see in the store at the prices of products. As you know, the second and third indicators can differ from each other by two or even three times.

Which one will the authorities prefer when indexing the cost of living for 2026? Certainly not a store-bought one...

Be that as it may, in 2025 the cost of living will increase by almost 15% compared to 2024. Precisely thanks to median incomes, which the government plans to abandon when calculating this indicator. After all, in 2023, a significant increase in real incomes of the population was recorded, and this monetary allowance fell at the end of the year. And this year, a significant increase in wages is recorded both in the first quarter and in the first half of the year...

If we switch to indexing the cost of living according to the inflation rate for the previous year, then we will no longer see such rates (15%). In any case, the government plans for this year's inflation rate to be 7.3%.

And this is not a question of arithmetic at all, but an important social problem. The fact is that many social payments are tied to PM. The most significant category of recipients are low-income families whose income per person is below the subsistence level. According to Rosstat, in 2023 there were 13.5 million such people in Russia.

Depending on the minimum wage, social benefits for children and pregnant women are also paid. As the cost of living rises, so does the saving of money for bank debtors to live on. They are left with more money to live on when they pay off their loan debts.

It is appropriate to recall here that this is not the first (and most likely not the last) change in the methods of calculating the cost of living. It is different for different segments of the population. In 2025, for able-bodied citizens the monthly minimum wage will be 19.3 thousand rubles, for pensioners 15.5 thousand, and for children 17.2 thousand. Before the median approach, this indicator was determined based on the cost of the consumer basket. Its composition was based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Health - how much potatoes, meat or other products a person should consume for normal physiological existence.

- Why can’t the government settle on just one method for determining the cost of living?

“The authorities cannot be blamed for this,” says Georgiy Ostapovich, director of the Center for Market Research at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. - There is no single methodology for calculating PM in the world at all. In different countries, it is calculated differently, but always taking into account the budget’s capabilities, based on how much the local Ministry of Finance is able to allocate funds for these purposes.

For example, in Europe, when determining this indicator, they consider the average salary of citizens. In some countries they create a multi-factor subsistence minimum. Which includes not only the cost of food and industrial goods, but also, say, the opportunity to purchase a car every 5 years or educate a child in a paid educational institution.

Essentially, this is a technical question. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

- And how much is it correct to calculate the PM for inflation?

- Inflation can be different. It is predicted, for example, at 9%, but it could drop to 5%. What to do in this case? Lower the cost of living? The population may not understand. The main thing is that in force majeure circumstances this indicator does not jump in different directions.

- When recalculated for inflation, will the result be higher or lower?

- it is now impossible to answer this question. The government is looking for reasonable approaches in choosing a methodology. I am sure that with any method of calculation, the cost of living will not differ significantly.