Three years later, the poverty level should halved. So said the president. But what the poor Russians say - and experts who can consider

Until 2024, there was very little time left. But it is imperceptible that the task set by President Putin is to reduce the poverty level in Russia. Poor people do not become smaller, and the devil separating them from more or less secured, deepens and expands, turning into an abyss.

“In the 90s, I was very poor. But the whole street was the same poor. And there was nothing shameful in this. We helped each other. Somehow relatives brought honey, I poured it on banks, took it to my neighbors. Then the neighbor calls: the husband brought the pumpkin from the cottage, come for his piece. Now differently. Now be the poor ashamed. Poor - sucker. Loser".

Muscovite Marina, who told me these words, lost work last year. Due to stress I got to the hospital. I went out - you need to urgently pay a loan. I took a million at large interest for prosthetics. In terrible condition, there were teeth, and the work demanded publicity.

Marina journalist, editor. She worked at the publishing house. There was a decent salary plus part -time work. She had no doubt that she would give a loan. But she was fired. They took a young man instead.

61 years old, diabetes, pension 19 300 rubles, rented apartment. Take off with his younger son, everyone pays his half. And ... damn loan.

When it became clear that it would not be possible to pay, the children (she has four) said: “We will not give for you, draw up bankruptcy.”

For a year now, as the manager takes 12,300 rubles from her pension for expenses, and 7,000 rubles are transferred to the bankruptcy estate.

She has zero income. Zero. How to live?

“She began to sell her clothes and shoes on the Internet. The dress costs 6-7 thousand, buy for 500. I take these 500, go to the store for groceries. I sold clothes, shoes, bags, hats, linen, furniture. Only books remained. But they are not taken. "

The son realized that her mother really has no money when she sold her sofa and began to sleep on the floor. Now he pays for the apartment the entire amount, no longer requires it. Although he, too with money, is not dense.

With diabetes, protein food is needed. Meat and fish are not affordable. They save legumes, there are a lot of protein. Once a week I buy chicken meatballs, with them I cook beans or peas chickpeas. The rest of the days is the same, but without meatballs. A plate of beans, there is sunflower oil - and excellent. I don’t want to eat all day. ”

True, you have to eat a bean of Marina. Chairs are also sold.

In addition, the denture also fell apart. The one for which the loan took. “Mask for me is salvation. I can speak, smile. No one sees my terrible mouth. ”

***

How many poor people are in Russia?

It depends on who to consider the poor.

There are different approaches.

The state considers the poor at the cost of living.

The subsistence minimum includes the minimum consumer basket for the region plus mandatory payments and fees.

The percentage of the population, not reaching the subsistence level, is revealed by a statistical examination. 47.8 thousand households are selected. For two weeks they keep detailed diaries. Record all their income and expenses and fill out questionnaires. The data obtained are calculated and analyzed by Rosstat specialists. As a result, the level of poverty is determined.

Among the poor are the most large families. They have to be especially tight. Especially if the parent is a loner.

Collecting the material for the article, I talked with many people with income below the subsistence level to find out how they survive: what they eat, what they buy, what they allow themselves.

Publishing all the answers will not have enough space. Yes, and not necessary, they are very similar. There are enough stories of two women who find themselves in a similar situation.

Both teach, both three children have no man and there is a mortgage that was taken on housing. One lives in Siberia in the village. The other is in the south in a big city. I was connected with both the Relict charity foundation.

“It's good that you decided to write about poverty,” said Tatyana Romanova, an employee of the fund, sharing contacts.

- Now we are asking all the wards of buckwheat. There are nothing to feed people for children. ”

Family budget

Anastasia, three children

Anastasia G. lives in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the village of Yermakovskoye. Three children - 15, 11 and 3 years. The salary is 16 thousand, teaches at school needlework. He receives benefits as a large mother in the amount of 1,500 rubles per month for all three children plus 6000 - a benefit for the youngest daughter. Only 23,500 rubles. Of these, 8000 every month is paid for a mortgage that was taken to the house. 15,500 for the whole family remains for life.

“Utilities-three to four thousand a month plus coal, since the house is heated by a stove. Coal car-three thousand, enough for a month and a half.

We eat our vegetables from the garden all year round. We buy only bread and meat, and sometimes fruits, sweets. We buy meat at once for a month - chicken, it is cheaper. Soup from vegetables with chicken is our main food.

There is no way to buy clothes for all children. I borrow, then I give it a little.

Two years ago, I bought a phone to my eldest son. He is already barely breathing, but so far there is no way to buy a new one.

There is a laptop, but broken. On the remotes, children went to study with my brother, he has the Internet. They studied on the phone there.

At home in the evenings we play cards, chess, films on TV.

We have family outputs in early summer. I get vacation pay, and we once go to a neighboring city on the rides to ride. We can’t allow any entertainment more. ”

Anna, three children

Anna B. lives in Krasnodar. She is a teacher in a kindergarten. Like Anastasia, she has three children. The salary is 18 thousand, a mortgage - 17.3 thousand a month. I took it under the apartment. There was a man nearby, counting on him.

“Before the pandemic, I just wanted to save housing. So that we have our own corner. My main task was to pay a mortgage. Now my main task is to feed children. ”

Anna takes additional shifts to kindergarten, washes entrances, washes dishes in the dining room. Supportments bring from 10 to 18 thousand - the family lives on this.

“We eat pasta, bread, potatoes. For a communal apartment I give from 3.5 to 5 thousand. Often I don’t cry for three months, the light is turned off, I write an installment statement. But I always leave for payment of the kindergarten. There the children are full. And it happens, there is no money - and you don’t know how to survive the weekend, how to feed children to kindergarten.

No one has spare shoes. The barefoot was torn - trouble. It is urgent a new pair, otherwise there is nothing to go to kindergarten. And they are 700 rubles the cheapest.

We moved to the apartment on a mortgage several years ago, but still without furniture. Only when they gave ten thousand for children to the pandemic, I bought two chests of drawers and a used cabinet.

I still have a laptop and a printer from the university. I pay 450 rubles for the Internet, television and phone, the eldest daughter spends the same package.

There is a TV, but very old. The pixels moved on it, and on the screen there are two huge spots, about ten centimeters in diameter. I understand that he is soon the end, but there is no money for a new one. ”

***

The consumer basket is an outdated approach to determining the subsistence level. In the near future, the state will switch to a new concept.

In early November, the State Duma in the first reading considered the bill No. 1027748-7 on amendments to the laws “On the subsistence minimum in the Russian Federation” and “The minimum wage”. Until the end of December, he will be accepted, and from 2021 the cost of living will be determined not by the consumer basket, but by median income.

Median income is a value relative to which one half of the population has income lower, and the other half has higher. “Since 2021, the bill proposes to establish the ratio of the subsistence minimum per capita as a whole in the Russian Federation and the magnitude of the median income of 44.2%, which will be 11,653 rubles in absolute terms,” the explanatory note to the bill indicates.

If 11,653 rubles are 44.2% of the median income, then the median income itself is entirely equal, respectively, 26,364 rubles. One half of the country's population in our month spends less than this amount, the other half - more.

The poverty level, calculated by the consumer basket, is called absolute. If it is determined by the median salary, then it is relative.

“We, researchers, expected that the transition to the concept of relative poverty would be given an increase in the number of poor people,” says Natalya Zubarevich, an expert in the field of regional social processes. - According to our estimates, it should have happened.

We were still surprised at the reckless step of the authorities: Putin instructed to reduce poverty twice, and they switch to a concept in which poverty, on the contrary, would grow.

But, apparently, the developers of the law fitted the bar of relative poverty for the current cost of living. The cutter was installed by 44.2% of median income instead of 50% or 60%, as in Western countries. ”

The subsistence minimum at least 11,653 rubles with a detector of 44.2% is still just above 11,468 rubles - the subsistence minimum of 2020, which determined the consumer basket. But the difference is so small that the number of the poor officially recognized by the state will practically not increase.

Nevertheless, according to Zubarevich, the relative concept is still better than the absolute: it gives a more objective picture of poverty.

It is clear that in different subjects there are different mediation income. “But they will not consider the median for each region,” Natalya Zubarevich is sure. - They will introduce the coefficients, and they can always be discharged. Will they adjust them to the desired numbers to create the appearance of a decrease in poverty? WILL NOT? Let's see. Now we just see that there is a big gap for adjustments. ”

***

In addition to the absolute and relative concepts of poverty, there is also the concept of subjective poverty. It is determined by hundred -bands.

“The share of the population, which negatively evaluates its financial situation, is much more than the share of the population located beyond the official poverty line,” notes Elena Grishina , a leading researcher at the Institute of Social Analysis and the forecasting of the RANEPA. - According to Rosstat, when answering the question: "How do you assess the financial situation of your family at present?" (I sq. 2020) - 25.5% of the respondents answered “bad” or “very bad”, and in the 2nd square. and III sq. 2020 of such respondents was already 31.0% and 26.0%, respectively. At the same time, the share of the population, which has the average per capita cash income below the subsistence level, in the first half of 2020, according to Rosstat, only 13.2%was. ”

Of course, you should not accept the data of hundreds of polls for truth in the last instance. Each person understands poverty in his own way: someone is a supplier for someone, and someone is a pearl crayfish. Nevertheless, polls indirectly confirm: most of the population, formally located above the poverty line, can hardly make ends meet.

According to the FOM survey in March 2020, the Russians called the poverty a monthly income of 22,795 rubles.

This figure is the middle in the country. In Moscow, it turned out above - 37,564 rubles. In cities with a population of 50 to 250 thousand people - 20 176 rubles. In the village - 19,720 rubles.

***

Olga has better the situation than Anna and Anastasia, living behind the poverty line, and much better than that of Marina, who lives, frankly, in poverty.

But if Olga can not afford meat and fish, she buys only worn out clothes and is not able to pay for the dentist’s services, and the language does not turn “average” her standard of living.

That is, he may really be average, since most Russians live in the same way. But then our average level is something special. Something out of the framework of ordinary human ideas.

“The European poverty criterion is when the household cannot lead a way of life for its society,” confirms Natalya Zubarevich. - He cannot go to rest with the whole family, bring children to the circus, call guests on his birthday, arrange a party in honor of graduation.

There, poverty is the inability to live decently in his society. And we have poverty of physiological survival: if a person does not starve and does not freeze, he is not poor. ”

This concept is called deprivation. People whose consumption does not comply with the standard in society due to insufficient income are considered poor.

The bar, cutting off the poor, is set by 50-60% of the country's median income. Recall that we installed it by 44.2%, adjusting it to the cost of living.

In European countries, they do not drive. There, the cut -off point is determined by the special methodology of the Eurostat.

In 2017, the HSE, by order of Rosstat, conducted a study “Poverty: indicators of material deprivation, social exclusion and multidimensional poverty”, finding out the possibilities of applying such a methodology in Russia.

Households were offered a list of material deprivation, but not European, but national. It was necessary to indicate what they could afford and what they cannot.

***

“Poverty, when a person is deeply immersed in it, destroys some kind of psychological resource. Something breaks inside. You lose faith in yourself, ”said Marina, from the history of which this article begins.

“It is completely impossible to explain your situation. You ask for help - it bothers people. They begin to be annoyed. They live in their usual world, and here you are suddenly with your poverty. Well, she’s to blame, right? Why did she take a loan, why she paid for her children, she could not pay.

The best thing, if you realize right away that the well -fed hungry does not mean. They do not understand what is happening to you.

Poverty - a person seems to burn out. Ceases to see the prospect.

Contacts are lost. You cannot all loved ones and friends with the question "How are you?" answer "badly." You are trying to look for some kind of enticing topics, but there are no enticing topics, because when you want to eat, the fantasy somehow does not work.

Friends have conversations: repairs, a new car, sold an apartment, bought a new one. I don’t know how to approach any topic. They become indifferent to me, I cannot support these conversations.

We already live so badly that there is nowhere to do next. At the same time, my son in the pandemic forbade me to ask volunteers to bring us free food. He is ashamed. Get help is a shame. ”