The impoverishment of Russians in 2021 accelerated fourfold

It is by this amount that the balances on the accounts of Russians that remain after deducting all compulsory expenses in the context of progressive inflation decreased.

The official report of Rosstat on the real standard of living in the country was supposed to come out on the eve of the President's message to the Federal Assembly. But the department suddenly postponed the release to "clarify the data", after which statistics showed a sharp acceleration in the decline in living standards.

“Compared to the fourth quarter (-0.9%), the decline in income has accelerated 4 times and exceeded the figure for the entire last year (-3.2%). On average, according to Rosstat, citizens of the Russian Federation lived for the first three months of 2021 at 32,612 rubles per month, or about $ 14.5 per day”, - finanz.ru reports.

As the newspaper notes, nominally, revenues increased by 965 rubles (+ 3%). But taking into account the progressive rates of inflation and the growth of obligatory payments, no real increase came about. While working Russians received an average of 51,229 rubles a month (+ 2% in real terms), pensioners were forced to survive on state benefits of only 15,779 rubles.

Earlier, officials took credit for the fact that the average pension in the country increased by 836 rubles, or 5.6%, compared to March 2020. However, the indexation carried out by the authorities turned out to be below inflation. In fact, pensions fell 0.1% in February and 0.2% in March.

In the face of a sharp decline in incomes, Russians have no choice but to gobble up their savings. According to Rosstat, in the first quarter, residents of the country received 14.3 trillion rubles in income, and spent 14.9 trillion. As a result, citizens' savings decreased by 604 billion rubles: they are rapidly diminishing at a rate of 6.7 billion rubles a day. In the structure of household expenditures, expenditures on housing and communal services and interest payments on previously taken loans increased by 0.8%. Already every sixth ruble (16.2%) citizens give away for compulsory payments. At the same time, debts of borrowers to banks have already exceeded 20 trillion rubles.

Rosstat believes that, on average, a Russian receives 33 thousand rubles a month, and the salary of a working person is more than 50 thousand. But according to the results of opinion polls, many respondents admit that they do not have such income. It became known the day before that the crisis hit small and medium-sized businesses especially hard, where salaries fell by 17% in the quarter.

Less than 6.5% of Russians have an income of more than 75 thousand rubles a month, and 80.1% receive less than 45 thousand. More than half of the country's population (53.7%) live below the poverty line. With an amount of less than 27 thousand rubles a month, they are forced to be content with an income of 12 dollars a day (about 900 rubles). Every third person has an income even lower - 19 thousand rubles a month. Thus, they can spend no more than 633 rubles or $ 8.4 per day.

The income of 20.4% of the country's population does not exceed 14 thousand rubles a month (6.2 dollars a day), and every tenth person lives on 10 thousand rubles a month.