Social minimum living standard in Russia: estimation methods

The minimum living standard of the population in Russia since 1992 is subsistence minimum (SM). It plays a significant social role as a criterion for the assessment of the need of households for social assistance. The methods for SM calculating were periodically changed, but the rate of absolute poverty was always measured by the share of the population with income below SM. The article considers in detail the methods for estimating SM, adopted in 2013 and based on normative-statistical approach. Analysis of the food consumption and the structure of consumer spending of poor households, based on Household Budget Survey 2012-2019, revealed their non-compliance with the SM that was effective up to and including 2020. Since 2021 estimation of poverty is made by statistical methods without calculating minimum consumer basket (Law № 473-ФЗ as of 29.12.2020). The poverty line is determined by the ratio to median income per capita, and the poverty rate is of relative character. Retrospective analysis of the dynamics in the per capita and median incomes of the RF population and the SM per capita for 2013-2020 makes it possible to estimate the difference in the rates of absolute and relative poverty and to understand what guided the developers of the law in determining the SM per capita at 44.2% of the median income and the value of SM for the main sociodemographic groups of the population for the year 2021. In addition, on concrete examples, by means of the logarithmic normal function used by Rosstat for calculation of the population income distribution, it is shown, at what ratio of the median income to the average, the rate of absolute poverty may be reduced by half as compared to 2019