Russia has managed to eradicate extreme poverty, according to the country’s 2020 Voluntary National Review published on the UN website.
The review was prepared by the Russian Government Analytical Center together with the Ministry of Economic Development, the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Service for State Statistics (Rosstat).
The Voluntary National Review is aimed at assessing Russia’s efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals until 2030 set by the United Nations in 2015.
The extreme poverty is assessed using the criteria of the World Bank, which suggests that extremely poor people are those who live on less than $2 a day.
In Russia, only three years ago, the share of people who lived on $3.2 a day was less than 0.1%. According to official data, there are almost no people whose income is less than $2 (RUR 140 per day, or slightly over RUR 4K ($57) per month).
Interestingly, the social pattern of poverty in Russia has changed over the past 20 years. Thus, in 2000, many of the poor were pensioners, while in 2017, over 80% of poor people were families with many children.