Inflation Hitting Russia’s Poor Far Harder than Those with Higher Incomes, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Documents

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 10 – Because poorer people have to spend a higher share of their incomes on the basic necessities than do those with higher incomes, it has long been recognized in Western countries that increases in prices for such necessities means that real inflation is far higher for the poor than for better off groups.

            Now, the To Be Precise portal has documented that this pattern is also true for the residents of the Russian Federation where increasingly high inflation is hurting the poorest segments of the population far harder than those with higher incomes (tochno.st/materials/na-135-vyse-byla-infliaciia-u-samyx-bednyx-po-sravneniiu-s-samymi-bogatymi-v-2024-godu).

            Because Putin’s war in Ukraine sent prices for some luxury goods skyrocketing as imports became less available and domestic produces raised their prices to take advantage of this trend, in 2022 and 2023, inflation increased more for those with higher incomes than with lower ones. But since 2024, the more typical pattern in which the poor are hurt more has returned.

            Between 2004 and 2021, prices in Russia grew more rapidly for the poor than for the better off. During that period, food prices increased 3.2 times for the poor but only 2.8 times for the rich. Then, in the first months of the war in Ukraine, that pattern was reversed but only for a relatively brief time. 

            In 2024, the last year for which statistics are available, price rises for all goods and services rose by 10.1 percent for Russia’s poorest people, but only by 8.9 percent for the richest. That means that the poor in Russia are now being confronted by a rate of inflation 13.5 percent higher than are the better off.

            This pattern helps to explain why better off groups were angrier at the Kremlin in 2022-2023 and poorer groups less so – and why that pattern likely changed in 2024. As a result, the Putin regime faces fewer questions from better off groups and more from the poorer segments of the population who in the past have been its prime supporters.