The Accounts Chamber equated the welfare of citizens to the level of the 2010s

The department pointed out that the growth of poverty would have helped to avoid social payments, and not improve living standards. The share of social payments in the structure of citizens' income last year was estimated by auditors at 20.8%.

In the conclusion of the Accounts Chamber it is said that due to "weak income dynamics after the crisis of 2014-2016, incomes did not have time to return to pre-crisis values, and 2020 only exacerbated the situation".

Last year, the poverty rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points and amounted to 12.1%. But this improvement was associated not with a change in living standards for the better, but with large-scale social payments. Analysts added that the share of wages has also increased - to 58.5%. At the same time, income from business, property and other cash receipts fell to the minimum indicators - 5.2%, 4.1% and 11.1%.

In mid-September, the Russians named the level of income they need for a "normal life." More than a third of the survey participants said that 50-70 thousand rubles a month would be enough for them, and before that, in April 2021, most of the participants in another study also called an income of 50-80 thousand rubles comfortable for themselves. Moreover, analysts considered that at that time 70% of citizens had only one permanent job.