Half of income is spent on food

This share is even higher than during the crisis of 2008-2009.

Russians more and more often have to say “no” to goods that non-essential, and in February they spent more than 50 percent of their income on food, according to a monthly monitoring by the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA).

“This [tendency] is a quite logical reflection of the fact that real incomes are going down. It is known that the poorer the household, the greater part of the budget is spent on food,” the authors of the monitoring say.

In February Russians’ real incomes fell by 6.9% compared to the same period last year, and actual wages fell by 2.6%. In course of the first quarter of 2016 consumer prices increased 8.4%.

The same monthly monitoring says that people are not very optimistic about any imminent change to the better. The majority (80%) say thay are affected by the crisis, and another 15% expect to become affected. Half of the population say that their living standards have fallen.