The coronavirus pandemic pushed Russian living standards to their lowest level in a decade, according to the country’s statistics service Rosstat. Real disposable incomes, a closely tracked indicator of Russian households’ financial wellbeing, dropped by 3.5% in 2020.
Economists said the government’s limited, but well-targeted anti-coronavirus financial support helped soften the blow for the poorest families, although an extra 400,000 households fell below the poverty line last year, the RBC news website reported. The number of Russians now classified as living in poverty stands at approximatley 19.6 million.
Construction and agriculture were the only sectors of the economy to register growth in 2020, according to Rosstat. Industrial production fell by 2.9 percent, retail sales slumped by 4.1 percent and the consumption of paid services, spending in places like restaurants, bars and hairdressers, fell the sharpest, registering a 17.3 percent drop over the year.
