Rosstat resets the number of the poorest Russians to zero

There are no families left in Russia that “don’t have enough money even for food,” according to data published by the Federal State Statistics Service. The corresponding column for 2023 shows the numbers “0.0.” For all 20 years that Rosstat has published similar data, the column has shown decreasing but non-zero values ​​— for example, 0.1% for 2022.

For comparison, in 2004, Rosstat found 4.4% of families in Russia that did not have enough money for food. But by 2021, the agency had reduced the share of this most needy category of citizens to 0.2%.

Rosstat used data on the incomes of 48 thousand households from different regions to summarize the results of 2023. To get the value of "0.0", the sample should have included approximately 20 families that did not have enough income to buy food (0.042%), Vazhnye Istorii noted . The publication cited statistics from the Bank of Russia as an example, according to monthly surveys of which, over the past two years, 7-8% of respondents have consistently complained that they have too little money for food.

According to Rosstat, about 11% of Russian families have enough money for food, but it is difficult to buy clothes and pay for housing and utilities. Almost half of Russians cannot afford “durable goods,” and 37% have to do without buying a car or housing. Only 3.4%, the main statistical agency reported, claim that they have enough money to buy what they need. In almost all categories, Rosstat observed an improvement in 2023 compared to 2022 — at least by a fraction of a percent.

In 2023, a law was passed in Russia that allowed the government to classify any statistics it saw fit, including demographic changes or price increases. Since 2022, the government has gradually stopped publishing data on the banking system, foreign trade, gold and foreign exchange reserves, and oil production and exports.

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