Despite Rosstat’s reports about a sharp decline in the poverty rate, tens of millions of Russian citizens are in a “pre-poverty” state, as they can only afford food and basic goods. As RBC reports, this was stated at a meeting of the Stolypin Club by Dmitry Belousov, the brother of Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, who heads the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting, which is close to the Kremlin.
“We have a situation where people don’t have enough for food, they have fallen into social poverty, socio-territorial poverty. In general, we have moved away from the situation when there were 15% of the poor who had nothing to eat at the end of the 90s reforms,” said Belousov.
Nevertheless, 30-40% of people are very close to the poverty line – they “only have enough for food and clothes”, and “this is also very bad”, added Belousov. According to his estimates, this concerns approximately 40-60 million people.
According to Rosstat data, in January-September 2025, 7.2% of Russians, or 10.5 million people, were considered poor. Their incomes were below the “poverty line”, which the state set at 16,980 rubles per month. On average, according to official statistics, Russian citizens lived on 73,038 rubles per month this year, and working people received 96,182 rubles in salaries.
However, the vast majority do not see such money in their pockets. According to the same Rosstat data, 58% of Russians have an income below 60 thousand rubles per month, 43.1% – below 45 thousand rubles, every fifth – below 27 thousand, and every tenth – less than 19 thousand (The Moscow Times).
