OREANDA-NEWS  Rosstat estimated the level of poverty in Russia for 2022. According to new data, 14.3 million citizens of the country, or 9.8 percent of the population, were below the poverty line last year, RBC reports.

This is one million people lower than the initial estimate of the department, published in March 2023. As a result of the data revision, the historical minimum of the official number of poor Russians has been updated. Since 1992, it has never fallen below 10 percent of the population. At the same time, the closest values were recorded in 2012: then 10.7 percent of Russians, or 15.4 million people, belonged to the poor.

Thanks to the financial support of some population groups, it was possible to reduce the differentiation of citizens by income level to 13.8 times compared to 15.2 times in 2021. This indicator is the lowest since 1998, also follows from the data of the state service.

In April, the Center for Civil Society Studies of the Higher School of Economics stated that by the end of 2022, one in six Russians (17 percent of respondents) complained of a lack of funds for food or clothing and shoes. Of these, four percent of the money is not enough even for food. At the same time, the situation has changed for the better in a few years, and the number of poor Russians has decreased.