How to get out of a poverty trap

The latest report by Rosstat “Income, expenses and consumption of households” (posted here), summing up last year, recorded that almost half of Russians only enough money for food and clothes. Something like a washing machine or refrigerator, God forbid he break, it is no longer possible to buy them. Even the TV, the main subject from which the citizen learns his own greatness, may not be available to the consumer. However, the TV is probably the last one that our person is able to refuse, especially since every seventh respondent of Rosstat noticed that he had no money for clothes or paying housing and communal services. It remains only to sit at home and watch world news.

You can, of course, argue with Rosstat. The survey and statistics are not quite the same. Answering the question “whether you have enough money for shoes” a negative answer can give two different people - the first who considers it normal to wear boots for a thousand rubles in winter and summer, and the second for whom the minimum price for high -quality shoes “for the season” begins with ten thousand. There is not enough money to one or another, but is it possible to call the “second” poor?

However, this is all casuistry.

The official poverty boundary, for which every eighth Russian was discarded, is 11,200 rubles, a living wage.

With this approach, you might think (and the authorities thinks so, apparently!) That with twelve thousand people are no longer poor and can enjoy life.

Therefore, in developed countries, the poverty threshold is considered not from the subsistence level, but from the median (not medium!) Salary. The median salary is a conditional indicator, the amount, more and less than which the same number of people receives. And if in the Russian economy the average salary (it can also be considered differently) is in the range from 42 to 47 thousand rubles, then the median is about 20% less, 35-37 thousand. By the standards of countries that we still can’t catch up and overtake, income at the level of 60% of the median salary is the threshold of poverty. That is, in Russian conditions, such a threshold should be twice as high, at the level of not 11, but 20-22 thousand.

If you count the number of officially poor, pushing away from this bar, then it will grow two times - both in absolute numbers and in relative ones.

It is pointless to list evidence of poverty of Russians, having eyes and see. Even the high authorities do not deny this sad fact and promises to take measures. The decree is replaced by a decree, a resolution by a resolution, but for some reason, poverty does not want to retreat. Despite the most formidable statements of those who are designed to fight her.

Inadequate goals

In this regard, I have both bad and good news.

Bad news - poverty will not retreat under the blows of decrees and statements,

Why - I'll tell you now. The news is good - you can defeat poverty, only for this you need to act not quite as the Russian authorities are trying to fight poverty.

The problem of the boss who goes to the duel with poverty lies in an inadequate definition of goals. When the boss talks about the victory over poverty, what exactly does he mean? How should this victory look like? Will salaries of the lowest paid workers increase? It sounds great, but if citizens' incomes exceed the level of subsistence minimum by a hundred, two hundred or even by a thousand rubles, will this mean that citizens live well, and poverty is overcome?

Or will every citizen have a hearty and healthy food? And not only in a hypermarket, but also a restaurant? At the same time, the purchase of clothes and shoes no lower than the well -known quality “for the season” will also not cause difficulties.

Or can everyone buy a separate housing, or - also without difficulty - rent this housing throughout life? An important question is which housing is considered normal - a one -room apartment in Kayerkan, with a view of the copper plant? Or four rooms on the Patriarchal ponds? Perhaps, as a result of the fight against poverty, the level of social stratification, which in Russia is extremely high, will somehow decrease? As you can see, these are all very different tasks, and the degree of achievement can be evaluated in different ways.

What do you want to achieve when you are talking about “overcoming poverty”, will we ask the boss? Personally, what do you see a win for yourself, if the country suddenly does not become poor?

Effective motivation

The motivation of poverty fighters is actually a key element that determines the success or failure of such programs.

Such a thing is easiest to explain by example. Exactly ten years ago, the specialists of the London organization Broadway, engaged in the help of the homeless, calculated how much one tramp, night on the streets of London, costs the city budget - taking into account the expenses of the police, hospital, and various benefits. Even a citizen devoid of housing remains a citizen, a member of a society that has the right to life, and to the fact that it is attached to life ...

Britain is an expensive country.

It turned out that the budget costs of one homeless person living in the center of the English capital are in terms of dollars - 50,000 a year. Having shifted this amount to the number of homeless people, you will receive crazy money.

And what will happen if you simply distribute some amount to the tramps, they thought in Broadway. Not large, but not a handout. Suppose 3,000 pounds. This is a little, much less than the amount spent on different indirect mechanisms for supporting tramps and compensating for the consequences of their stay on the street. 50,000 pounds were allocated for the experiment, each of the 13 homeless people received three thousand pounds. Without any conditions.

After a year and a half, social workers summed up - nine people left the street. None of them, of course, got rich, did not open his own business, did not make any career. It’s just that the former tramps found a roof over their heads, and the work that allowed them to provide themselves - in any case, at a higher level than the one they had on the London sidewalk. Four remained tramps, but they began to seek medical help less often. And the organizers of the experiment could evaluate the financial gain from the victory over poverty on a single street - several hundred thousand pounds.

"Poor and hardworking"

In no case should you think that such experiments are a sign of some kind of “socialism”. In the new time, the first experience of ensuring “unconditional income” took place in the English Berkshire, at the end of the 18th century. As the Marxists said, in the era of the most ruthless operation of workers.

In 1795, members of the magistrate in the city of Spindhal decided that "every poor and hardworking person" should have three shillings for the maintenance of himself and 1 shilling 6 pence per family member. " According to the approximate recount, the then English 3 shillings correspond to the current 11 pounds. If the earnings of a “poor and hardworking person” were less, then he received a remembering from “funds coming thanks to the collection of special tax in favor of the poor”. The authors of the Spindhalem Act also provided for the indexation of this amount in case of price growth. If the bread was valued, the size of the manual increased in proportion to inflation.

The practice of applying the Spindhalem Act quickly spread throughout England and lasted almost forty years. The following circumstance, very remarkable, destroyed this practice - the assurance of the employers is that their employees will not die of hunger in any case, because they can apply for benefits, led to a massive underestimation of salaries.

Where the employee used to be offered the same shilling per day, there the manufacturer or farmer appointed a smaller salary, since the rest of the employee had to receive the rest of the public funds.

This story, by the way, serves as an excellent argument against lining the volume of social assistance with the amounts of earnings. Russian assholes-polystyers do it all the same as their British "partners" two hundred years ago came-they pay the minimum minimum, assuming that the authorities in any case will not allow voters to die.

In general, the purely Russian model “working pensioner” is the same “Spindhalemsky act” in action, since in our conditions a beggarly salary with a beggarly pension has a Russian “poor and hardworking person” could reach an acceptable level, not even life in general, but at least everyday consumption. Presumably, this circumstance was pretty annoyed by the authorities, arguing that in such a situation, the most entrepreneurs, to whom the state actually sponsored labor, win the most.

The growth of salaries is primarily provoked by an increase in demand for labor, or a deficiency of the proposal of this work. So far, having raised the retirement age, the chiefs have only increased the labor supply. True, it is also trying to make work with scarce, the authorities are also trying, and also without great success.

True theory and erroneous practice

All bossy talks about increasing labor productivity, thanks to professional retraining and re -equipment of jobs, is not quite chatter. Apparently, some graduate of the economic school retold to the authorities the content of the theory of economic growth of Robert Solou, the Nobel laureate.

It's all about the technical equipment of jobs and training workers, Solou explained. New equipment will be required by qualified employees, such employees will be in short supply and “in price”, which means that they will require large salaries. The need to pay this money will motivate entrepreneurs to invest even more complex technologies that allow maximizing the return from each workplace - here you have growth for the economy and increasing prosperity for workers.

It’s not that Solou was mistaken, he simply built his economic model in the 1950s for countries with the so-called “complex economy”, like Germany or the USA. Most of the exports of the “complex economy” are machines and mechanisms - that is, products that require a large number of various technologies and industries.

The keywords here are “export”, because the criterion for a real “complex economy” is its ability to compete in the global market of complex products.

You can look at the animation as many as you like, illustrating the technical achievements of Russian industry, but Russian exports are raw materials.

Even the volume of exports of agriculture in Russia twice as much exports of the military -industrial complex.

Therefore, any “technology with digitalization” rests on the industry structure of the domestic economy - as simple as a hundred years ago.

And the sector of household services, how you do not technologize it, cannot be a driver of income growth on a country's scale. Already now, the workplaces of Russian taxi drivers, waiters and sellers in stalls are very technological, only the income of these employees is a derivative of income in other, more complex industries. But not vice versa. And if these industries are not, then there will be no income. It turns out a vicious circle.

Money in hand

It is possible to break this vicious circle without structural restructuring of the economy (and this is not fast) is possible. But only if you act according to the same scheme, according to which they torn a vicious poverty circle of London tramps. People should get "money in their hands." We must look in person to the truth -

The existing structure of the Russian economy does not allow a significant part of “poor and hardworking people” to break out of poverty, “just working”.

People need additional money, and where to get it and to whom to give?

You can’t give money just like that, the boss will say right there, there will be inflation, you don’t want to be like the “nineties”? It can be argued here that the rise in prices in the “nineties” was to a great extent provoked by the preceding deficit of goods, and the need to overcome this deficit. But in fact, the boss is not worried about inflation, but for the fact that in order to prevent possible deficiency, you will have to open the boundaries for imports paid by the oil -eater. The chief considers Nefteedollars his own, and does not want to share with citizens. Moreover, the boss argues if the “poor and hardworking” citizens suddenly get rich, he will have to raise salaries to everyone who receives money from the budget.

In fact, there are many ways to leave people more money in their hands, you can come up with a lot. These methods must be discussed and calculated. What do you think about the variant of the "product basket" in kind? A set of products that citizens who have income below a certain level are guaranteed to receive? Both the level of this income and the content of such a basket are a subject for conversation, but the winnings here are such - people would have more money for other goods and services, and the production and logistics of such “baskets” could become an entire industry that connects many industries from agriculture to delivery services. What is not the “national project” to you, only with a much more simple result for measuring.

They may object to me that such a model is very similar to the practice of Spindhalemsky Act. Well, let's connect such a basket not with income, but with age. In this case, completely rich bosses will receive such a basket - well, let them get if they are not ashamed to do it.

In fact, overcoming poverty and costs of inequality is necessary because poverty and inequality play a much more destructive role for the modern economy than is commonly believed. But this is already a topic for another story.