Rich, Poor, Who, Where, What For… HOW MUCH?
What attributes define the middle class?
Amounts to earn and spend in capital cities?
Official reports, public polls, press surveys since 2006 to the latest comment.
Dollar amounts rounded, course contemporary to the publication.
Russian and Ukrainian snapshots appear interchangeably.
- 2006 Monthly Employee Income – Russian Federal statistic service
Moscow sampling. For the rest of Russian population, divide into 3.
Average official monthly income per person: USD 1044.
Top professions average: banking – $1730; IT&T – $1040; sales – $950.
Underpaid occupations: school teachers – $480; health & social care – $618; scientists and scholars – $570. Manufacturing & building workers are slightly better off ($670, $740).
Additional incomes mentioned: multiple jobs, bank deposits, property rental, securities and currency investments.
The gap between average earnings of top 10% and lowest paid 10% citizens is 50,7 times. Business owners and investors, self-employed, jobless were not counted.
Publicly-determined monthly subsistence minimum for the employable is $218 for Moscow and $187 Russia average. 15-17% population’s income is below these lines for their respective regions.
Source: “Rossiyskaya Gazeta“
- 2006 Russian living expenses – VCIOM
(Pan-Russian Center of Public Opinion Research)
The greater part of Russians spend all their money on food, housing & utilities. For 41% poll participants, food consumes 25-49% of their family budgets, and 39% eat 50-74% of their incomes. Public utilities take ¼ of income from 36% households, and 25-49% income from 44%.
Only 16% afford to be regular clients of market-based, non-governmental (read: non-disastrous) education and healthcare facilities.
What does the “average” Russian have to economize on? Vacation (52% have spent it kitchen-gardening at dachas, or bumming at the sofa). 1/3 have restricted themselves on home appliances, healthcare, visiting relatives, cinemas, theaters and clubs.
Purchase of clothes and footwear has grown by 9%. The report article doesn’t quote the initial figure, just hints vaguely that this article is nearly fulfilled. For young people it’s the #1 item of expense. (Next they compete by cell phones, and guys strive for cars above all the rest. First “any car”, then “better car”…)
Only 28% people have some savings. Of these, 58% have had them increased during the year, 9% – decreased, 30% deposits remained unchanged. The number of optimists who plan to open a bank account rose by 4%, yet 7% more people (from 17 to 24%) don’t find it possible to invest spare money into banks.
- Russian Rich
2005. 90,000 rouble millionaires in Russia (only 10,000 in early 90’s), their number growing as fast as 17,4% annually. 720 billionaires (compared to 468 in 2004), or 50 by dollar estimate. 25 of them live in Moscow, which number is world’s second to NYC (40 persons).
2007 – the number of dollar billionaires grew to 61 (the top 10 own more than $10 bn each). 500 people (which is 70 more since 2006) now own 2 bn roubles (=$90 million), not counting high officials with their families, showbiz stars, mighty media, and all the “non-transparent” business owners.
Those allow experts to estimate the actual number of bi-billionaires as 1000 or even 2000 persons; 10-20 000 persons of $10+ Mio; and 100-200 000 persons whose assets (home not included) exceed $1 million. Means that roughly one person in a thousand Russians is definitely rich.
I can’t say “men” here. Women make half of the FSU businessfolks. And in the “top 500″, there are 15 women. 14 of them are wives, widows, daughters, or top managers. One is a “real” self-sustained business owner, and she holds the tough #17 in the “Finance” magazine rating! Yelena Baturina, construction & development, wife of the Moscow mayor Luzhkov (no one can tell who of this couple actually depends on whom). After a triple growth in a year, her capital amounted to $6 billion. (If you guys ask me about her looks, I’ll say she is blonde, born with classical features, but grown big weight typical for a common Russian woman of her age.)
Russia’s “top 500″ private capitals total $425 bn, whereof 80% belong to the top 100 tycoons. The state budget of the Russian Federation is ca. $200 bn, GDP = ca. $1 trln, nearly equal is capitalization of stock market (where most portfolios are state-owned).
28% of the new richest were born in the 1950s, 45,6% in the 1960s, – economic liberalization concurring with their most productive years. 60% are ethnic Russians. 4% are known to be criminally compromised by legal charges or press investigations.
Source: “Vzglyad”
© Comrade Natalia (translation / compilation)
(…please link to this page when using some information from it! ;)
February 26, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I guess it would be interesting to look what branches of Russian economy have generated highest private incomes.
Well, it’s rather difficult to sort out. Large-scale businessmen run several businesses, which are normally (but not always) intertwined. Below is an attempt by the same “Vzglyad” observer to name the directions of businesses that could be called “main interests” of the “top 500″.
Ferrous metals – 30 persons; non-ferrous – 5; aluminium – 3; gold – 6; pipes – 5.
Oil – 24 (only); coal – 18; gas – 14 (close community). Energy (non-governmental) – 3.
Real estate – 26; construction – 18; construction materials – 3; cement – 6.
Wood & paper – 9. Agroindustry – 20.
Fertilizers – 7. Other chemical – 6.
Machine building – 16. Aircraft – 4. Automotive – 2.
Air transportation – 6. Other transportation – 14.
Telecoms – 10 (associated ownership); IT – 10.
Portfolio investors – 9.
Insurance – 5; small banks – 43 persons; other financial service – 3.
Food – 30, import of fruit – 2. Vodka – 11.
Pharmaceuticals – 2, pharmacy – 5, cosmetics, perfume shops – 2.
Trade, universal – 40.
Trade in consumer electronics – 9; car dealers – 4; luxury items – 1.
Slot machines – 2. Restaurants – 3.
Apparently changing profile – 23 persons.
Rentiers on liquidated business – 17 persons.
February 26, 2007 at 6:08 pm
It’s interesting how Ukrainians define themselves as middle class (which implies the message “I’m no poor, if not rich“).
There are two criteria, often taken on their own: (1) higher education and worship of cultural values, and/or (2) income that allows a “dignity-sustaining” level of consumption. The latter has three minimum qualifiers to meet:
1. owning a flat, lodging or hire-purchasing it (as for a car, opinions differ – you can be proud enough without it);
2. using mobile phone (that’s a de-rigueur standard of urban life; you can hear its tune from the dacha bag of an antiquated baboushka and watch her handle it with skill, to chirrup with relatives who live the winter on potatoes and preserves from that dacha);
3. lunching at small restaurants or “home cuisine” cafeteria (how else if most people work 9 to 6), spending evenings with friends at respectable cafes, and attending cinema, theater, billiards, disco, sauna or such at weekends.
In Kiev, this requires minimum $1000-1400 monthly per person (if you have to pay instalments or rent for property which is overpriced beyond propriety). And such income isn’t such much wonder, though the average Kiev salary (wage) is $300-400 monthly.
Beyond Kiev, average Ukrainian wage is ca. $140. But the prices are much lower, too. State-determined minimum wage is $80.
March 25, 2008 at 3:07 am
What attributes define “middle class” in Russia?
2008 poll by Pan-Russian Centre of Public Opinion Research (VCIOM) furthered by a popular Russian newspaper “KP” spread into the Web
To 22% respondents, the key criterion is “stable income and worthy salary”. 19% have named businesspeople and entrepreneurs as representatives of the middle class, 13% add state servants. Less frequent are referrals to medics (5%), teachers (4%), scientists and engineers (2+2%) – situated at the lower end of the payroll, if not for private jobs or baksheeshes in healthcare and education. 4% mention politicians, public deputies, officials, – typically inhabiting the upmost strata, due to profiteering from their powers.
Good residence is mentioned by 75-77% respondents. Together with a car, a summer house (“dacha”), and vacation travels, it makes the Middle Class Pack to the opinion of 11% Russians.
The quoted site held its own online poll on signs of success. 584 people have responded.
50%: Monthly salary above 100000 RUR (ca. 4000 USD)
22%: Separate residence
18%: “We don’t have the middle class, neither going to”
9%: A car
1%: A color TV
Yevgeny Yasin, ex-Minister of Economy, now academic chairman of Higher School of Economics:
- Definitely, earning for a living “no worse than others”. And a worthy home as a symbol of wealth. But two more things are required. Good education, qualification. Plus self-esteem which forms the conduct that tells: yes, this is a well-to-do gentleman.
Lidia Ivanova, twice Olympic Champion in Gymnastics:
- I think, one has to have a flat, a dacha and a car. Yes, and a good salary – no less than 3000 dollars monthly. But, sure, a family income no less than $10000 a month would be better.
Sergey Lukyanenko, ex-doctor, sci-fi writer (“Night Watch” after his plot has made big rumor in American movie industry):
- A car no longer is the pass into the middle class. Conversely, it’s an extra headache for city dwellers, because of traffic jams. Good housing and a decent paycheck are very important.
Alexey Mitrofanov, politician, scandalous social newsmaker, ex-Deputy of the State Duma (Parliament):
- Beside of wealth, middle class means psychological comfort. The sense of stability and safety. Even paupers in the West feel more secure than our oligarchs do. I could guess that a reason for today’s widespread nostalgia for Brezhnev’s times is that people used to feel more stability and confidence back then.
Mikhail Delyagin, Chairman, Institute for Problems of Globalization:
- 60-70% Russians can qualify themselves as middle class just because they “live better than Uncle Vasya the neighbor, who drinks away everything he has”. But seriously speaking, our “golden middle” is 5-7%. Because half of the wealthy in Russia are bribers in the state service or police, and tax-evading businessmakers. Whereas the true middle class ought to be both rich and law-abiding.
Olga Polevaya, a bank employee in Voronezh:
- First and foremost, one needs a head on the shoulders! Otherwise it’s hard to make the way into the middle class, and into people at all.
Readers’ comments:
- Middle class – it’s when one and one’s family are independent on circumstances (work, tenancy, political situation in the country, the stock market). Income should be derived from several sources – and suffice both for life and for investment.
- An apartment, 2 cars per family, a dacha in the suburb, monthly income per family member no less than $4000 in Moscow or $2000 in province. And confidence in the tomorrow! There.
- How modest! Give everyone a palace in London. Buckingham, please.
- Why, is that much? My boyfriend and I earn $9000 for the two of us. This won’t let us move from our one-room into a 3-room apartment and make children.
- Sure it won’t, if you shit it all away. The solution is, don’t you flock all at the same place (Moscow). Then the prices would stop growing.
- Learn to express yourself civilly, you sound an exemplar spokesman of low class. Back to the topic, this amount lets have a normal life, but not save or invest. Strike off half of that amount, if she leaves for maternity, look what terms of mortgage offers are available, and what places you can get for that. A new one-room would be luck.
- If you use cheap cars, do without vacations abroad, downgrade food stores, save on clothes (colleagues would justify the sacrifice in the name of housing!) – you could spare ca. $7000 monthly. Multiply by 36, and in the end you might buy a livable 3-room shelter.
- Why angry retorts? I’ve been an “A” student, gave no bribes for tuition, get “clean” salary. We buy food at wholesale prices. No lux brand clothes. One ageing Ford Focus. OK, 36*7000 = 252000. Visit several realty sites, it’s one-room in the “sleeping” outskirt. Last autumn a square metre cost some $4500, now it’s $6500 plus. What is to expect in 3 years?
- Even with oil prices at $200, only oligarchs would benefit, and the poor would turn the poorer. Look at the dormitories of Academgorodok. The state-forming nation, for decades and generations of families, is squeezed in barracks. The 6 square metres allotted for a kitchen are occupied with dwellers. Invaders from Caucasus and Middle Asia are teeming on Russian social allowances. I think our country would never have a middle class, like it would never solve the national problem of affordable residence.
- Added to one, taken from another. Pure physics. All the rest is baby tales for the voters. Where can you get so many banks as to employ everyone? Go to province to live on 300 bucks per month, before blabbering that one needs to be smart and successful. The secure are needless, they make danger to the powers. ‘Cause they are not hungry and have their own opinions.
- Middle class abroad is when you can live for one year on one year’s savings. Who can in Russia, if not a business owner?
- My acquaintance, an émigré to Portland, is a roamer. Works for two months, quits, and drives from town to town, from friend to friend, for a year. When short of money, he works again, then has a ball again. Well paid, isn’t he. And I am breaking my back like a draught horse, to make both ends meet. I work at a decent office, for the government newspaper, for $300. Half a dozen food shoppings, and my salary is gone. In seven recent years, we could afford only new home appliances, in installments. Every time they raise wages, prices soar. Hate this country.
- Each time the middle-classmates appear – i.e. neither parasites, nor slaves – they flee to normal countries, where no one fears that the mayor’s wife kicks you out in the interests of her business. Sure we can never develop a middle class this way.
April 17, 2008 at 11:36 pm
For the year 2008, the State budget of Ukraine sets the following monthly minimums, to be upgraded every quarter:
(current commercial exchange rate is UAH 5 ≈ $1,
here are updates for all currencies in several banks in 19 regions)
Subsistence…………child, aged…work-capable…disabled …… Minimum
minimum………………below 6………major………………person………wages
From January 1:……$105……………$127………………$94…………..$103
From October 1:……$111……………$134………………$100…………$109
Median personal income per capita in January 2008 was $174, in February $185. Disposable incomes for January and February have grown 47.3% above the level of same period in 2007, or +22.1 if corrected by the price factor. Public expenses have grown by 41.4%. For inflation dynamics, see the post on food shopping in Ukraine.
Left parties demand to double the official subsistence minimum, so as it shouldn’t look so mockingly far from reality. In this issue, they are trustworthy, even though to no avail.
Surviving in Kyiv
“Gazette a la Kiev” (my favorite guide, as nutritious as the famous cotelette rhyming with its title), having quoted the above, summarized basic expenses for the capital residents in April 2008.
The average salary in Kyiv, by the Statecomstat’s report at the end of 2007, is UAH 3038 ≈ $608.
* Food eats up half of that: $10 per day, $300 per month, if one leads an active life and has a snack outside home (assuming optimistically that lunch would be a bonus from the employer).
* Communal services are hardly unifiable. For a 2-room khruschovka (the bottom of real estate market – a tiny flat in a 5-storey block built in the times of Khrushchev as an economy mass project) where 3 dwellers are registered, the monthly fees would make $40, including electricity and landline phonecalls.
* Transportation with marshrutkas (minibuses that reluctantly stop on call along set routes) results in some $2 daily = $60 monthly. Car owner’s expenses (petrol, maintenance, tire change etc.), at most modest estimates, make up $200 per month.
* Clothing depends on personal demands, but let’s allocate 2-3 hundred hryvnias ≈ $60 monthly, that can be summed up for more expensive garments.
* FMCG – washing powder, cleaning agents, waterproofing for footwear, etc. – would take at least $30.
* Weekends elsewhere than the sofa require money, too. E.g. one shashlik picnic = no less than $40 = 2 kg meat + alcohol + mineral water + vegetables. A night at the theater or a visit to the circus, for two, may cost even more.
The actual “subsistence minimum” per person living in Kiev (Kyiv) is summed up as UAH 2650 ≈ $530.