The real spending of Russians, adjusted for inflation, according to Rosstat data, increased in August compared to the previous month (6.4%) and compared to August 2020 (8.5%). This is a consequence of payments of "children's money" in August - about 350 billion rubles. additional income of Russians (10 thousand per child). On average, Russians' consumer spending is just over 4 trillion. rub. per month. Those. "Baby money" was about the same 8% of monthly spending. The statistics caught this very clearly.
And in September, one-time payments to pensioners and security officials (up to 500 billion, or 12% of consumer turnover) will "pour out" on the market.
What's more interesting. Muscovites in August increased their expenses by 3.4% compared to July 2021 and by 7% compared to August 2020. Incomes in Moscow are higher than the average in Russia, and “children's” payments made up a smaller share in them.
On the other hand, in the regions, the effect of “children's money” was more noticeable: in cities with a population of 100,000 to 500,000, average spending increased by 7.1% over the month, and by 19.7% over the year.
What food for thought gives us statistics on the growth of real spending by Russians? - the experts of the Proeconomics channel are asking:
“Once again we are convinced that inflation in Russia is non-monetary. Look: children's payments and payments to pensioners and security officials (they began to be credited to accounts from September 2-3) totaled 850 billion. Another + 100-150 billion is the growth in consumer loans over the month. Those. about 1 trillion. rub. poured into the consumer market over the past month and a half.
Yes, you can also add to this the money that Russians have saved on foreign tourism, traditional for the last one and a half years. August and September are traditionally months of vacations, and earlier Russians exported up to 500 billion rubles in just these two months, but now a significant part of this money is spent inside Russia (let's assume that about half of this amount). Those. most likely, the additional emission of money to the consumer market in August-September was (and will be until the end of the month) up to 1.2 trillion. rub. compared to previous years. This is 15% of consumer spending in two months.
A number of court economists assured that all this money together would accelerate inflation (and therefore there was no need to pay it). But what do we see in reality? Over the past week, inflation has grown by only 0.04%. At the level of statistical error. And this despite the fact that earlier inflation was growing at a rate of 0.1-0.15% per week. Those. inflation growth rates decreased 2-4 times.
There was no acceleration of inflation from the release of this money into the consumer market.
Most likely, there will be no big inflation if you start adding pensions, benefits, and salaries to Russians.
The real causes of inflation in Russia are the devaluation of the ruble (a number of studies cited by @proeconomics show that devaluation is responsible for the rise in inflation by 1-1.5 percentage points). Further - the tariffs of natural monopolies (for example, another increase in tariffs for housing and communal services from July 1 by 3.5-5%). Another group of non-monetary factors is the monopolization of markets. In our country, many markets are monopolized, which ultimately affects the prices of a large number of goods and services. This can be seen in Moscow. The Central Bank itself admits that inflation in Moscow is lower than in the country by 1-1.5 percentage points. because "the consumer market in the capital is competitive".
The Central Bank also admits (for example, in its report for 2017) that “long-term non-monetary conditions, primarily institutional (the state of competition and parameters of state regulation)”.
Therefore, two factors that the financial bloc of the government and the Central Bank are fighting against inflation are to deliberately lower the real incomes of Russians and increase the key rate, i.e. worsen lending conditions - do not work in Russia.
You can give out money to Russians and keep a low loan rate - and this will only benefit the economy and the development of human capital in the country..."