Criteria for assessing the standard of living of the population of the country

For Russia, overcoming the problem of poverty and improving the level and quality of life of the population has been one of the most important tasks for many years, and it has not yet been possible to achieve fundamental results in its solution. Today, as before, a significant proportion of Russians are below the poverty line, having extremely low monthly incomes, which are not enough even to cover basic needs, which, together with the increasing differentiation of the population in terms of income, creates high social tension. Despite small positive shifts in terms of reducing the proportion of the poor, the pandemic that began in 2020 led to the start of another economic crisis, as a result of which the country’s economy suffered significantly, which also affected the incomes of Russians. In the course of the study, a comparative analysis of the standard of living of the population of Russia and a number of European countries during the pandemic is carried out based on key assessment criteria, an assessment of the situation in Russia, the causes and socio-economic consequences is given. It was revealed that in 2020, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the standard of living of the Russian population was at a fairly low level: despite the nominally relatively small proportion of the poor compared to the level of a number of European countries, today, as before, the level of the minimum wage, average wages and pensions in the country is almost at the lowest level, exceeding the level only of Ukraine, whose economy has been virtually destroyed since 2014.