Yesterday Rosstat has published more detailed statistics of income and expenditure of citizens in 2018.

Current estimates of statisticians supplements the fact that the decline in real disposable income for the fifth consecutive year, the average real pension in 2018 decreased by 2.4% (taking into account lump sum payments to pensioners in the amount of 5 thousand rubles in January 2017). Against the background of rising real wages, the share of wages in household income in 2018 66.2 per cent — 0.8 percentage points (PP) more than in 2017.

Significantly (by 0.5 percentage points to 4.9%) decrease in property income only slightly — from the business and social benefits — by 0.1 percentage points to 7.5 percent, and 0.2 percentage points to 19.4%.

Recall that total cash incomes Rosstat said on the basis of their costs. In the structure of the latter, the share of mandatory payments for the year increased by 1 percentage point, to 12.1%. This is due to the credit boom and the ensuing increase in spending on servicing debts (only the mortgage loans in 2018, the citizens took in 2.5 trillion rubles). In other words, if no new loans and their servicing, incomes in the methodology of Rosstat in 2018, could grow by 0.8–1%, said Igor Polyakov of the CMASF.

The rate of consumption in 2018 continued to grow — in an average year, 77% of all cash expenditure was spending on goods and services (see chart). This is a high proportion of current consumption characteristic of the crisis— it was not observed in Russia from 1998 to 1999. At the same time increased and the share of expenditures on current consumption, which the citizens did Bank cards abroad — from 2.5% in 2017 to 2.9% in 2018. against this background, the share of expenses on savings (in the methodology of Rosstat they include changing Deposit funds in the accounts of individual entrepreneurs and of credit debt, purchase of securities and real estate) declined sharply, in particular due to the growth of Bank debt.

Differentiation of the Russian population by income level in 2018 has not changed. The top 10 per cent most affluent citizens, as in 2017, accounted for 30.1 per cent, while the share of 10% poorest — 2.0% of the total amount of cash income.