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Poverty level in Russia remains high, says ex-finance minister

Real disposable income of the population decreased by 1.7% of GDP in 2017, despite the fact that Russia saw economic growth, Kudrin stated

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/. The level of poverty in Russia remains high, however, for the first time in four years, the incomes of the population, including pensioners, are expected to grow in 2018, Head of the Accounts Chamber Alexey Kudrin said on Thursday.

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PM Medvedev says poverty huge headache for Russia, remedies taken but more work needed

"Nevertheless, the poverty level remains high, 19.3 mln people, which is 13.2% of the population have income below the subsistence minimum," he said.

"Real disposable income of the population decreased by 1.7% of GDP in 2017, despite the fact that we saw economic growth, although real incomes were projected to increase. Over the past 4 years, living standards and real incomes of the population have decreased by 11%," Kudrin added.

In 2018, real incomes for the first time will show growth, Kudrin hoped.

"I hope that this year we will see for the first time an increase in real incomes of the population, for the first 8 months they grew by 2.6%. The real growth of pensions last year, however, was already positive, and reached 3.6% after a two-year break, when real incomes of pensioners decreased by 7.1%. In the first 7 months of this year, we also see growth of real incomes of pensioners, it is encouraging," Kudrin said.

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