Today, less than half of Russians – 47% – are ready to classify themselves as middle class in terms of income, according to a survey by Sberbank CIB. In 2014, 60% considered their income level to be average, almost twice as few – 35% – characterized it as low and below average, and 5% – as high. But since then, the ratio has changed “in favor of the poor”: now there are slightly more Russians who believe that their income does not reach the middle class level (48%) than those who consider themselves to be middle class. The share of those who consider themselves to be highly wealthy, after a decline in 2016, has again returned to the pre-crisis level of 5%.

When assessing which economic class to classify oneself in, a person analyzes what expenses they can afford, says Yaroslav Lissovolik, head of the analytical department of Sberbank CIB: if there is an opportunity to travel, visit restaurants, save, they are more likely to classify themselves as middle class, but if they only have enough money for basic expenses, they are more likely to classify themselves as “below average.” The share of those who classify themselves as middle class fell dramatically between 2015 and 2017, notes Lissovolik, but has remained virtually unchanged in the last 15 months.

Rosstat has not yet presented revised data on the dynamics of real incomes since 2014, it has only published data for 2018, where instead of a fall, there was growth. For now, we will continue to assume that from 2014 to 2017, people's incomes fell and still remain below the pre-crisis level of 2013.

In 2015–2016, Russians felt their opportunities had collapsed, and the share of those who consider themselves to be in the middle class really dropped significantly, notes Alina Pishnyak, head of the Center for Income and Living Standards Analysis at the Institute of Social Policy at the Higher School of Economics. However, self-esteem is only one of three criteria for belonging to the middle class, the other two being education level (higher) and financial security. HSE experts consider those who meet at least two of these criteria to be in the middle class: in this scenario, the share of the middle class grew significantly in the 2000s, reaching a peak of 30%, decreased in 2015–2016, and recovered to 28% in 2017.

The share of the middle class began to recover, as people realized that they were not facing a temporary crisis, but a new economic reality, says Pishnyak: as a result, they began to save less and spend more on education and medicine. According to the same principle, the self-esteem of Russians should soon recover, says Kirill Tremasov, director of the analytical department of Loko-Invest: the general standard of living has decreased, the bar for classifying oneself as middle class will fall - it's just that not everyone has realized and accepted that the standard of living has decreased seriously and for a long time.

This seems to be true: experts from the Institute of Social Analysis and Forecasting (INSAP) of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) noted that Russians are gradually coming to terms with their new economic situation back in the summer of 2017. Although people's real incomes continued to decline, the share of those who began to notice improvements in the economic situation then grew from 4-6 to 11%. People got used to the sluggish crisis, a stable slight decrease in income, and stopped feeling the deterioration of their financial situation, economists pointed out. In addition, compared to two years of the crisis, the situation looked better. The absence of bad news is already perceived as an improvement, said Yulia Chumakova, executive director of INSAP. Since then, the share of "optimists" has steadily increased: according to the latest INSAP data, it now stands at 18.6%.

So, probably, the growth of optimism will entail the growth of people's self-esteem. But there are no real grounds for the growth of the middle class yet: if in 2012 Vladimir Putin in a pre-election article for Vedomosti drew attention to the rapid growth of the middle class in the country, then in the new political cycle this cohort somehow disappeared from the authorities' radar. The president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the results of the Sberbank CIB survey, even wondered whether the concept of "middle class" even exists in Russia. And although the OECD warns that the problems of the middle class lead to political instability, which can hinder investment and economic growth, the authorities are now focusing on a completely different class - the poor.

How to Raise Your Self-Esteem to Middle Class Levels