Professor of the Department of Economic and Social Geography of Moscow State University, expert of the UN development program Natalya Zubarevich cited data according to which the income of Russians for 2020 fell by an average of 3.5%.
Given that the population was getting poorer before the pandemic, just a little bit slower, according to Natalia Zubarevich, in terms of income we are back to 2010.
“The number of poor people in our country increased last year to 20 million people. One in five children grow up in a poor family. State payments for children during pandemics were one-time, so they helped little and did not solve the problem of poverty,” the expert added.
The exit from the crisis of 2015–2016 has not yet ended, investments and consumption have not fully recovered, as in 2020 everything fell: retail trade, investment, industry, GDP, revenues, consumers’ demand for services. The consequence is that we ‘ ll get out of the “covid” crisis very slow, Zubarevich forecasts.
The population is poor, and real estate prices in megacities are rising. Zubarevich explained this by preferential mortgages and a slowdown in the pace of construction of new housing. The expert believes that rise of prices for apartments in the capital may slow down, but is unlikely to stop — housing will not become more affordable.