In 2024, **** million people in Russia lived below the poverty line, marking a considerable decrease compared to the previous year. The number of Russian residents that earned an income below the subsistence minimum was nearly ** million higher in 2000. What percentage of Russians live in poverty? Looking at annual figures, Russia’s poverty rate has declined since 2015, when it exceeded ** percent. Over ***** percent of the population of Russia lived below the national poverty line in 2024. Several other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Latvia, reported higher poverty rates. Subsistence minimum in Russia Starting from January 1, 2025, the monthly per capita subsistence minimum in Russia stood at ****** Russian rubles for the working-age population and at ****** Russian rubles on average. That figure includes the cost of essential goods, such as food products, clothing, and medicines, and services, such as utilities and transportation expenses. The subsistence minimum was lower than the average wage in Russia, which was set at ****** Russian rubles from January 1, 2025.

Between 1987 and 1988, just three percent of the population in Central and Eastern Europe lived below the poverty level; between 1993 and 1995, this had increased to one quarter of the population. This drastic shift came as a result of communism's end in Europe, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Russia alone, just two percent of the population lived in poverty in 1989, but this rose to 23.8 percent in 1998.

Over the past 30 years, there has been an almost constant reduction in the poverty rate worldwide. Whereas nearly ** percent of the world's population lived on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars in terms of 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 1990, this had fallen to *** percent in 2022. This is even though the world's population was growing over the same period. However, there was a small increase in the poverty rate during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when thousands of people became unemployed overnight. Moreover, the rising cost of living in the aftermath of the pandemic and spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 meant that many people were struggling to make ends meet. Poverty is a regional problem Poverty can be measured in relative and absolute terms. Absolute poverty concerns basic human needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and clean drinking water, whereas relative poverty looks at whether people in different countries can afford a certain living standard. Most countries that have a high percentage of their population living in absolute poverty, meaning that they are poor compared to international standards, are regionally concentrated. African countries are most represented among the countries in which poverty prevails the most. In terms of numbers, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have the most people living in poverty worldwide. Inequality on the rise How wealth, or the lack thereof, is distributed within the global population and even within countries is very unequal. In 2022, the richest one percent of the world owned almost half of the global wealth, while the poorest 50 percent owned less than two percent in the same year. Within regions, Latin America had the most unequal distribution of wealth, but this phenomenon is present in all world regions.