Rosstat reported on its website that the number of poor people in the country has dropped by 1.1 million.
According to the department, in the third quarter of 2020, 18.8 million people, or 12.8 percent of the country’s population, had incomes below the subsistence minimum (11.6 thousand rubles). Thus, compared to the second quarter of 2020, which saw the peak of quarantine measures and the associated jump in poverty (up to 13.5 percent of the population), the number of poor people after most restrictions were lifted decreased by 1.1 million.
Rosstat names a significant amount of social payments to families with children and the unemployed among the reasons for the decline in poverty. The calculations took into account the 255 billion rubles allocated by the government as additional social support.
In December 2020, President Vladimir Putin declared the inadmissibility of a situation when people do not have enough money for food. In March of the same year, Putin noted that since the turn of the century, the share of Russians who can be classified as middle class has exceeded 70 percent. According to him, the poverty level in Russia has more than halved over the same period.