Incomes of Russians fell by 1% at the end of the year
At the end of 2022, household incomes fell by 1%, Rosstat reported. Against the backdrop of the crisis, they declined for three quarters in a row, but the annual dynamics was supported by income growth in the fourth quarter by 0,
In 2022, the real disposable income of the population (income minus mandatory payments, adjusted for inflation) decreased by 1% compared to 2021. This is stated in the report of Rosstat "The socio-economic situation in RUSSIA." According to the results of the pre-sanction 2021, revenues showed the highest growth in eight years - by 3.2%.
The sanctions crisis of 2022 made the dynamics of real disposable income downward. During the first three quarters, the indicator fell in annual terms. In particular, in the third quarter, the drop was the largest and amounted to 3.1%, according to updated data from Rosstat (in the estimate previously announced by the department, it was 3.4%). However, according to the results of the fourth quarter, revenues turned to growth (plus 0.9% compared to the same quarter of 2021).
The decline in real incomes of Russians accelerated by autumn Economics
As a result, the annual figure turned out to be better than the Ministry of Economic Development forecast (minus 2.2%) in the September macro forecast, which formed the basis of the 2023 federal budget. This was another indicator of official statistics, according to which reality surpassed initially pessimistic expectations (after, for example, fixed investment, which grew in real terms by 5.9% in nine months of 2022, and for the full year, according to BLOOMBERG Economics , — by 6%).
How the income structure of the population has changed
In the structure of cash income of the population in the last quarter of the year compared to the same period a year ago, the shares of income from entrepreneurial activity, social payments and other cash receipts increased, the report says. At the same time, the share of wages (by 0.7 percentage points) and income from property (by 0.8 percentage points) decreased.
Natalia Lavrova, Chief Economist at BCS World of Investments, draws attention to the growth in the share of other cash receipts in the income structure in 2022. “If in 2021 there was a decrease in the share, then in the past year, the trend seems to have reversed. Other incomes include, among other things, the so-called shadow incomes or those that are not distributed according to the items of money income formation,” she noted. Other income in the methodology of Rosstat also includes money transfers from abroad.
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As for the structure of the use of income, at the end of the year, the amount of funds that the population directed to savings increased significantly (plus 7.3%). Citizens were most actively increasing their savings on deposits and in cash in the fourth quarter, up 15.7% compared to the same quarter of 2021, or 3.7 trillion rubles. This means that the population spent less on goods and services and saved more. The share of funds allocated for purchases and payment for services decreased by 2.5 percentage points over the year.
The fact that geopolitical and economic uncertainty forced Russians in the past year to adhere to a savings model of consumer behavior, which restrained demand, was written by economists of the Central Bank in the review “What Trends Say”. “Together with the pass-through of the December weakening of the ruble into prices, this could cause an acceleration in consumer price growth in the short term,” they warned.
The decrease in consumer activity can be seen in the statistics. In 2022, the total turnover of retail trade, public catering and paid services of the population decreased by 4.1%.
As Lavrova predicts, in the face of uncertainty, the trend towards savings will be stable.
What happened to pensions and salaries
The real size of assigned pensions at the end of 2022 decreased by 0.9%, excluding lump-sum payments to pensioners (in September 2021, they were paid 10 thousand rubles each) and by 3.8%, including.
The Russians called the size of the ideal salary
There is no annual dynamics of real wages yet. According to available data for January-November, the indicator fell by 1.1% compared to the same period in 2021. In nominal terms, wages have risen. The average monthly accrued wages of employees in January-November 2022 amounted to 61,985 rubles, which is 12.7% more compared to the same period in 2021. This growth is explained by the fact that employers indexed salaries to employees taking into account high inflation (11.9% at the end of the year), which partially compensated for the fall in real wages.