“Sugar went up by 30%, beef by 15%”. The money of Russians is decreasing
In a September opinion poll conducted by the Russian state-funded company VTsIOM, 21% of respondents said that their savings have decreased since the February attack on Ukraine.
34% even attacked Ukraine and its Russia He said that he did not have such savings before the severe consequences.
Up to 39% of the survey participants said that their savings did not change, and 5% even said that they were able to increase their money reserves.
Such figures are difficult to ascertain in Russia, where opinion polls and sociological research are conducted under severe restrictions. “Raiffeissen Bank“in an online opinion poll conducted by İstanbul in early February, 70% of respondents stated that they had no savings at all.
And in August Russia government predicted that the economy would shrink by 4.2% for 2022. Minister of Economy Maxim Reshotnikov on September 6, he said that this indicator could be 2.9%. Independent economist Vladislav Inozemtsevhe wrote that partly due to the problems caused by Putin’s mobilization order, the contraction in the economy will be less until the end of the year 10will be %.
in economics from Indiana University Mikhail Alekseyev says that the true extent of the contraction for the average Russian is in some sense military can be masked by increased costs.
“This means that less production is focused on the needs of ordinary consumers. Considering this, the situation is even more terrible.” – he says.
In response to the question about the findings of “VTsIOM” regarding savings, Akelseyev said that the most disturbing aspect of the results is that 44% of the respondents over the age of 60 do not have money in reserve.
“Given how small pensions are in Russia, this seems more dire than the overall decline in savings,” – he says.
Melbourne Applied Economics and Social Researcher of the Research Institute, economist Maxim Ananyev says that in February President Vladimir Putinin Ukraine the rise in consumer prices since the attack began Russia has become a problem for
“According to Rosstat (Russian state statistics agency), since January, sugar has become more expensive by 30% and beef by 15%. These are not luxury products, but things that people buy almost every day. In addition, in March we witnessed consumer panic. People eat canned food, etc. they hurried to buy and collect. People spent their savings at that time, and then they did not have the opportunity to restore them.” – Ananyev says.
The economist says that three important events have happened since the opinion poll of “VTsIOM”. Their effects are yet to be observed. Mobilization, the “North Stream” to Europe gas explosions that disabled the belt and Europe Union of Russian oil and gas accepting a new package of sanctions that limits prices.
According to Ananiev, it is difficult to predict the effects of these unprecedented events, but we can safely say that “money will decrease”.
“Economists like Sergey Guriyev and Oleg Itshoki say that now every dollars will go to finance the war. I agree with them. But even if the government tries to spend a fraction of every dollar that comes in to support the economy, there will still be appreciably less money.” – Ananyev says.
“It is very difficult to predict what will happen in the future. But in general, we can say that nothing good is on the horizon.” – he emphasizes.