METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO ESTIMATION OF POVERTY IN RUSSIA

Abstract

The article declares, poverty is the most important socio-economic thing influencing social stability and quality of living of a citizen. The methodology of calculating the income poverty line applies minimum subsistence basket, which is aimed at supporting human activity. The consumer basket is scientifically explained and includes food products, non-foods, services and compulsory payments. The cost of minimum consumer basket is defined by means of average goods prices included into the basket. The cost of living is indexed to the rate of the inflation and calculated for the main groups of people (able-bodied population, pensioners and children). This index doesn’t include communication expenses, expenses on education, repair etc. The author considers minimum living subsistence, which includes wider spectrum of goods and services to be the real index, which correlates with the index of consumer prices. The publication stipulates minimum living subsistence supports the level of wide reproduction consumption and should be considered as a low rate of human wellbeing. The paper analyzes the poverty rate in Novosibirsk region by means of different approaches to its calculation and compares the poverty rate in Novosibirsk region with the average indexes in Russia; as a result it shows the necessity to improve the mechanisms of income distribution in order to prevent population from poverty.