Monetary revenues as a major indicator of the living standards of the population of Russia

Abstract

Purpose of research . The relevance of the research topic is associated with the presence of a number of controversial issues arising in the statistical study of monetary incomes of the population of the country and regions. These issues include: comparability of monetary income in dynamics, assessment of differentiation of population by income and consumption, comprehensive assessment of regional differences in the income level. The aim of this work is to study the monetary income of the population of the Russian Federation as a universal characteristic of the living standard. Materials and methods . The information base of the study was the official statistical materials of the Federal State Statistics Service, including the materials published by ROSSTAT in the “Statistical review” in early 2019. Along with traditional statistical methods, the study also used the method of assessing structural differences, the method of index analysis of the differentiation of the population by monetary income at both the Federal and regional levels. Structural shifts in consumer spending between groups with different income levels were identified. Results . In Russia, from 2014 to 2017, the annual decline in real disposable income ranged from one to 3%, with an average annual growth rate of nominal income of 5%. In 2010–2018, more than 47% of income was concentrated in 20% of the population of the Russian Federation with the highest incomes. The 20% of the population with the lowest income accounted for less than 5.4% of the total. Inequality in the distribution of monetary income leads to the formation of consumer structures that differ in social groups with different levels of income. In the study, an integral coefficient of structural shifts of Gatev was used to estimate these differences. As a result of its calculation, significant structural differences between the groups of the population of Russia with the highest and lowest incomes were established. A study was conducted on the level of monetary income of the population of 14 regions of the Volga Federal District in 2018. For all regions of the Federal District, three local indices were calculated on three indicators: average per capita monetary income of the population, the average monthly nominal accrued wages of employees of organizations and the share of the population with incomes below the subsistence minimum. Their arithmetic mean value representing the index of monetary incomes of the population was determined. Conclusion . The results of the calculations allowed identifying three groups of entities in the district, which differ significantly in terms of cash income of the population. The problems of differentiation of monetary income in the Volga Federal District, identified in the study, are typical for many regions of Russia. In order to solve the problems, concerted actions of the regional government and the state, aimed at improving the living standard of the population of the country are necessary.