Rosstat Stops Publishing Gini Coefficient to Hide the Fact that Income Inequality in Russia has Been Increasing for the Last Four Years, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 13 – One of the most widely used measures of income inequality around the world is the Gini coefficient, a figure that ranges from 0 where there is perfect equality of incomes to one where on person has all the income and the rest have none and a metric that is monitored for what is says about the state of income inequality and the direction it is changing.

            Not surprisingly in countries where income in equality is increasing do what they can to obscure that fact. Russia is one such country; and the government’s statistical arm, Rosstat, has now stopped publishing data on it as the rate has gone up each of the last four years and now stands at 0.419, the highest level since 2012 (https://t.me/tochno_st/785).

            What of course is both perverse and typical is that Rosstat continues to publish data showing that income inequality is growing. Its reports show that the wealthiest 20 percent of Russians saw their share of incomes rise between 2024 and 2025 from 46.9 to 47.6 percent, while the poorest 20 percent saw their share of incomes fall from 5.3 to 5.2 percent.