Statistics: Russia’s poor population rises 15% in Jan–Jun

MOSCOW, Sep 8 (PRIME) -- The number of people whose income is below Russia’s living wage increased by 14.8% on the year to 21.7 million people in January–June, or 15.1% of the country’s total population, according to the Federal State Statistics Service’s data published on Tuesday.

But the number of poor people decreased by 12% on the quarter to 20.1 million people in April–June, the service said.

The monthly living wage for April–June increased by 3.7% on the quarter for employable citizens and pensioners to 10,792 rubles and 8,210 rubles respectively, while for children the figure grew by 3.3% to 9,806 rubles.

The cost of the market basket’s foods increased by 1.7%, while the cost of non-food goods rose by 5.1% and of services grew 6.2%, the service said.

(68.4864 rubles – U.S. $1)

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