OREANDA-NEWS. Rosstat has summarized the data of 2018 which says poverty rate of Russians is reduced, media reported on March 22, Friday.

Poverty level in Russia decreased to 12.9% in 2018, according to materials given by Rosstat (Russian Federal State Statistics Service). Thus, the share of population with incomes below the living wage in the end of last year was 18.9 million people, against 13.2% (19.3 million people) in 2017.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, the poverty rate was 10%, or 14.7 million people, against 9.9% (14.5 million people) in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The minimum subsistence wage in the fourth quarter of last year amounted to 10.213 thousand rubles (currently $159.39), which is 2.3% lower than in the third quarter of 2018. At the same time, in annual terms, the living wage was increased by 4.4% - it was 9.786 thousand rubles in the fourth quarter of 2017.

“Rosstat has recorded multidirectional trends in the number of needy population. According to the first estimate of Rosstat, in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with the corresponding period of 2017, the poverty rate increased by 0.1 pp and amounted to 10% of the population. In general, year to year there is a slight decrease in poverty in 2018 - by 0.3% pp, to 12.9% of the population,” the statistics service notes.

The minimum poverty rate was recorded in 2012 (10.7%), after which it increased annually until 2016. Since 2017, the indicator has been falling at insignificant rates.