Sixty percent of those who say their income is medium cannot buy a refrigerator or television.
Photo: Nikita Infantyev
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Russian Middle Class Feels Pinch
A new poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion shows that 37 percent of Russians who consider their financial condition very good are unable to buy automobiles, and 43 percent say it would be problematic to buy a new television or refrigerator. Moreover, 72 percent of those who rate their material condition as very bad have only enough money for food and clothing, and 21 percent say that they do not have enough money for food.
The pollsters (known by their Russian abbreviation VTsIOM) analyzed changes in Russians’ material conditions since 1998. In the last 11 years, financial conditions have notably improved, the poll showed, and poverty has been reduced. The portion of those who say they barely make ends meet has fallen from 28 percent in 1998 to 7 percent this year. Fifty-one percent of respondents say that they can buy both food and clothes (24% in 1998). The group of respondents that VTsIOm labeled middle class, that is, those who are able to afford durable goods, but cannot afford truly expensive items (a car, for example), has doubled in size in the last decade to 16 percent (up from 7%). The portion of Russians who can buy an apartment or dacha was only 1 percent (with a statistical margin of error of 3.4%).
It cannot be said, however, that the purchasing power and financial opportunities of those who declared their material conditions as good or very good corresponded to their claims. Thus, 13 percent of those who consider themselves well-off say they cannot buy themselves clothes. Thirty-seven percent of them cannot buy an automobile. Sixty percent of those who say their income is medium cannot buy a refrigerator or television. Real income has grown steadily by 11.5 percent in Russia in the last ten years.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 30, 2008
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