Just a fairy tale! Rosstat announced a record decline in the number of poor people

According to the ministry, now the number of the poor in Russia is 0.2 percentage points, or 300 thousand people, less than in 2019. The Russians should be thanked for the reduction in poverty levels by a series of rolling social payments during the coronavirus pandemic. The main role was played by direct transfers of money for the maintenance of children under 16 years of age.

As noted by RBC, in 2014 there were 16.3 million people with incomes below the subsistence level in the country, or 11.3% of the total population. In 2015, the number of beggars rose sharply to 19.6 million (13.4%), and then gradually began to decline.

Despite the rosy reports of Rosstat, experts of the Accounts Chamber believe that in fact the problem of poverty in the country is not being resolved quite effectively.

According to a number of economists, the real level of poverty in the country against the background of a pandemic may not reach 12.1%, but reach 50%.

As the chairman of the supervisory department Alexey Kudrin said earlier, about 20% of those in need now live without the necessary measures of state support. Their incomes are well below the poverty threshold, but people do not receive assistance from the state.

Kudrin suggested that the government revise the mechanism for distributing social benefits for the poor, including in the number of recipients not only citizens with children, but also other needy people whose incomes do not reach the subsistence level.

Now the government is considering mechanisms for revising the criteria for assessing the standard of living, which will form the basis of future state programs to support those in need.

Earlier it became known that against the background of the pandemic, many of the richest people in the country managed to significantly increase their well-being, while the incomes of many ordinary Russians fell noticeably.