To measure food security UNICEF combines the number of people in conditions of moderate and extreme vulnerability (those who have to skip meals or limit their food intake). According to this indicator, the situation in Russia is not that bad: we are on the same level with developed countries.
The situation is even better than in high-income countries on average. However, according to the World Bank classification, Russia is among upper-middle-income countries.
"Indeed, there are few malnourished families in Russia. This is a true achievement. In recent years, state social programs targeted the poorest segments of the population. For example, shortly before the 2018 presidential elections, the funds for social projects in regional budgets were increased. These actions were related to politics, but extreme poverty was reduced because of that".
Evgeny Gontmacher, economist
The World Bank calculates the level of poverty by measuring the daily consumption value. People are considered extremely poor if they spend less than $1.9 (140 rubles) a day. Last year, Russia informedthe UN that extreme poverty in our country has been eradicated since 2017.
According to this data, we are on the same level with high-income countries.
The Ministry of Labor measures poverty differently. The Mintrud consider people poor if their income is less than the living wage.
The amount of poor people in Russia peaked in 2000. After that the number declined drastically and in 10 years it fell more than twice.
Since 2010 the number of poor people in Russia has stayed approximately on the same level. A slight rise in 2014 and 2015 is connected to the accession of Crimea.
One of the main groups of the poor citizens is families with children. Every fourth child lives in a poor family.
The more children a family has, the more likely it might end up among the poor. Among children from large families, one in two lives in poverty.
"The main problem of Russia's social policy is low salary. There are regions where a salary of 30 thousand rubles is considered a good one. The birth of a child in a family with such financial conditions becomes a powerful blow to the budget. Mothers stop working, but maternity allowance does not compensate for her income. In developed countries, the birth of a child also puts an additional strain on the budget, but it’s not fatal and people do not fall below the poverty line because of that. In developed countries average salaries are significantly higher than in Russia"
Evgeny Gontmacher, economist
The approach that the Ministry of Labor uses to measure poverty is called monetary. It estimates only current incomes, so it can’t show the actual level of poverty. To assess the situation more objectively, it is worth adding a deprivation approach. It’s based on public surveys which show what goods and services people cannot afford.
In 2018, Rosstat published a report on multidimensional poverty. The number of Russians who faced harsh restrictions was higher than the official poverty level.
"Poverty is the lack of access to services and benefits which are considered normal and publicly available. In Russia there is an idea of what a normal life looks like. This image usually features a standard apartment where parents can sleep separately from the children. It also features all the necessary gadgets, a week of vacation for the whole family every year, paid additional education for a child, paid medical services, and the opportunity to go to a theater, cafe or restaurant. If a family can’t afford at least some of the above, this is called deprivation. That means that people are deprived of what is considered normal"
Evgeny Gontmacher, economist
Another typical indicator of poverty are the food expenditures. The more money a family spends on food, the poorer it is. Russians spend about a third of their income on food.
This number is two or three times higher than in developed countries.
Low-income and extremely poor households in Russia, spend half of their income on food.
It's also important to take into account what kind of food people eat
According to a Rosstat study, in 2018, 30% of adults in Russia ate meat less than once a week, 40% could not afford to buy fresh fruit every week and 60% ate fish less than once a week.
In households with more than four children even more respondents were deprived of several foods.
There is a large group of poor people in Russia, which is barely represented in official statistics. These are elderly people. Legally, retired people cannot be considered poor, because their pension cannot be lower than the living wage.
But if the deprivation model for calculating poverty is used, about a third of pensioners would experience severe deprivation. RANEPA experts assessed the conditions of labor veterans in Russia.
About half of labor veterans are deprived of basic material needs, every fourth — of medicines and medical services and every fifth — of meat, poultry or fish dishes.
"There is not a single poor pensioner if we look at the living wage. But the living wage is a calculated value that won’t even allow people to think about a normal life. Retired people at least have free public transport rides. They wander around the city, looking for potatoes or medicine that are a few rubles cheaper. You don’t call life a situation when you are forced to count every penny"