Most of the poor are two-parent families with children.

On the topic: “Poverty, its forms, statistical expression”

Discipline: "Economics"

Completed:

1st year student, 4th group

Full-time - correspondence department

Faculty of Veterinary Medicine

Kiseleva Nadezhda Viktorovna

Record book number: B/B13077

Work verified

"___" ________________2014

Teacher:

Krasnoslobodtseva Valeria Olegovna

Moscow 2014

Introductions

History of poverty studies

Causes of poverty

Forms of poverty

Concepts for defining poverty

Absolute concept of poverty

Relative concept of poverty

Subjective concept of poverty

Deprivation approach

Problems with the current definition of poverty and proposed new definitions

Poverty indicators

Scope and profile of poverty

Poverty in Russia

Directions and mechanisms for reducing poverty

Conclusions

Literature

Introductions

Poverty as a characteristic of the economic status of an individual or social group. extreme insufficiency of property values, goods, funds available to a person, family, region, state, and also for normal life and activity. The threshold or poverty line is the normatively established level of monetary income of a person or family for a certain period, which provides a physical subsistence level. the economic situation of an individual or social group, in which they cannot satisfy a certain range of minimal needs necessary for life, maintaining working capacity, and procreation. a state of need, lack of means of subsistence, which does not allow satisfying the urgent needs of an individual or family. Government revenues can be diverted from the main service by corruption, such as in Nigeria, where its leaders have stolen about $400 billion of the country's oil revenues. Aid funds and natural resources are often diverted into private hands and then sent to foreign banks as a result of bribery. Preventive measures, according to UNODC, include requiring public officials to disclose income and assets and strict rules on the financing of parties and election campaigns. If Western banks rejected the money, the Global Witness report says, ordinary people would benefit "in ways that aid flows would never reach." The report asked for more action from banks as they were found to be capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism and money laundering. An African Union report found that more than $150 billion a year is taken out of Africa through tax evasion by foreign corporations, such that the poverty-stricken continent is a net creditor to the rest of the world. It is estimated that about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP has been shifted to tax havens. Developing countries' debts to rich country banks and governments are often more than the country can generate in a year from export earnings. Poor countries don't have to spend so much on debt payments; they can use the money instead for basic services such as health and education. For example, Zambia spent 40% of its total budget on repaying external debt, but only 7% on basic government services in 1997. One of the proposed ways to help poor countries was debt relief. Zambia began offering services such as free health care even while the health infrastructure was overwhelming, due to savings that resulted from the 2005 round of debt relief.

Poverty

Poverty is a characteristic of the economic situation of an individual or social group, in which they cannot satisfy a certain range of minimum needs necessary for life, maintaining working capacity, and procreation. Poverty is a relative concept and depends on the general standard of living in a given society.

History of poverty studies

In studies of the causes and place of poverty in society, the period from the 18th to the first half of the 20th century is distinguished (A. Smith, D. Ricardo, T. Malthus, G. Spencer, J. Proudhon, E. Reclus, Karl Marx, C. Booth and C . Rowntree) and modern studies of poverty in the 20th century (F.A. Hayek, P. Townsend, etc.). Already the works of A. Smith revealed the relative nature of poverty through the connection between poverty and social shame, i.e. the gap between social standards and the material ability to adhere to them. Back in the 19th century, it was proposed to calculate the poverty line based on family budgets and thereby introduce the criterion of absolute poverty, linking the criteria for determining poverty with the level of income and satisfaction of the individual’s basic needs related to maintaining a certain level of his working capacity and health. A significant contribution to the study of poverty problems was made by both economists and sociologists, most of whom recognized the regularity of the existence of poverty in society; the difference in points of view consisted, first of all, in the recognition or denial of the need for state intervention in solving the problem of poverty and the scale of such intervention.

Causes of poverty

Poverty is a consequence of diverse and interrelated causes, which are grouped into the following groups:

economic (unemployment, low wages, low labor productivity, uncompetitiveness of the industry).

socio-medical (disability, old age, high morbidity rate).

demographic (not complete families, large number dependents in the family).

educational qualifications (low level of education, insufficient professional training).

political (military conflicts, forced migration).

regional-geographical (uneven development of regions).

religious, philosophical and psychological (asceticism as a way of life, foolishness).

Forms of poverty.

It is possible to distinguish forms of poverty by time (stagnant, temporary), in relation to the state of the subsistence level (poverty, neediness, low income). Stagnant poverty- this is long-term poverty, it has always been characteristic of Russian villages. Temporary poverty is characterized by short periods of stay in it; it has now become typical for the urban population due to systematic non-payment of wages. Based on the amount of income compared to the subsistence level, they distinguish

three forms of poverty:

poverty(income does not provide the cost of the food portion of the subsistence level);

neediness(income at the subsistence level);

poverty(income exceeds the level of the subsistence level budget, but does not reach the minimum consumer budget - MPB).

Concepts for defining poverty

Absolute concept of poverty

The concept of absolute poverty is closely related to the concept of poverty line. The poverty threshold is the level of disposable income, gross income, or consumption below which a person is considered poor. Absolute poverty is often measured as the number of people or households whose level of consumption or income is below the poverty line. If we take the poverty line to be the necessary means to support life, then we can define all funds above this line as discretionary income. Sometimes several poverty lines are used: for poverty itself and for extreme poverty (poverty, extreme poverty). The World Bank sets the threshold for absolute poverty to live on less than 1.25 US dollars a day (the rate is calculated using PPP). The poverty line as an indicator has one significant drawback: it does not take into account the number of households located directly above it by a small margin. It should also be noted that this allows a situation to exist where poverty and inequality are increasing and the number of people below the poverty line is decreasing.

Relative concept of poverty

Relative poverty is contrasted with absolute poverty. Measures of relative poverty set a relative poverty line and measure the income of the population against it. In the case when the real incomes of the entire population grow, but their distribution does not change, relative poverty remains the same. Thus, the concept of relative poverty is part of the concept of inequality. However, this does not mean that less equality always means less relative poverty, or vice versa. A measure of relative poverty might show, for example, how many people earn less than a quarter of the median income. This approach is especially useful when identifying poverty in unfamiliar societies or where it is difficult to value a particular set of goods. Comparison of income with mode share and harmonic mean - additional tools studies of the stratification of society. The founder of the relative concept of poverty is P. Townsend, who considered poverty as a condition in which, due to a lack of economic resources, maintaining a lifestyle familiar to the majority of members of a given society becomes impossible. He based his analysis of poverty on the concept of a set of experienced deprivations, multidimensional deprivation, which he understood as “the state of observable and demonstrable disadvantage of an individual, family or group relative to the community, society or nation as a whole.” The concept of multidimensional deprivation was introduced by P. Townsend because, along with material deprivation, including such indicators as food, clothing, housing conditions, durable goods, place and condition of the living environment, conditions and nature of work, he also used indicators of social deprivation, including the nature of employment, features of leisure time, education, etc. Currently, within the framework of this definition of poverty, two directions have emerged. The first focuses on livelihoods, the ability to purchase goods needed to meet basic needs. IN in this case When constructing the relative poverty line, the indicator of median personal disposable income is used. In the USA, the relative poverty line corresponds to 40% of median income, in most European countries - 50%, in Scandinavia - 60%. Within the second direction, called the civil law theory of poverty, poverty is measured through deprivation in the broad sense of the word. In this case, it is considered whether the means available allow full participation in society, based on certain basic sets of deprivations taken into account. The scale of relative poverty does not coincide with the scale of absolute poverty. Absolute poverty can be eliminated, but relative poverty always persists, due to the fact that inequality is an indispensable attribute of stratified societies. Relative poverty persists and even increases as living standards for all social classes rise.

Subjective concept of poverty

Subjective poverty is a concept of poverty based on the belief that only the individual can determine whether he is poor. There are many approaches to determining the level of subjective poverty: you can find out how many people consider themselves poor or consider their friends poor. It is possible to identify a subjective absolute poverty line based on public opinion, and then compare the income of the population with it.

Deprivation approach

Measuring the level of poverty can also be carried out using a deprivation approach. According to it, the poor are considered individuals whose consumption does not correspond to the standard accepted in society and who do not have access to a certain set of goods and services. That is, with this approach, poverty is determined not only by insufficient income or low consumption of essential goods and services, but also by low-quality nutrition, inaccessibility of education and health services, lack of normal housing conditions, and so on. Thus, measuring the level of poverty using subjective and deprivation approaches allows us to conclude that the perception of poverty is significant for the population not simply as existence on the brink of physical survival. Poverty is a state when an individual cannot provide a more or less decent existence, taking into account the social norms and generally accepted standards that have developed in society. It is in connection with this understanding of poverty that many sources use consumption rather than income. Consumption is already a result that does not require calculations of disposable and discretionary income. It shows what turned out to be accessible, but could not become so. In addition, rural areas experience high seasonality of income, while consumption fluctuates less. Moreover, developing countries have a high share of the informal sector in the economy, which further complicates the collection of income data. However, calculating poverty levels by consumption also has its drawbacks; for example, in northern countries with harsh winters, consumption can fluctuate just as much as income. Sometimes the poverty line is taken to be the minimum level of income or accumulated wealth at which an individual is provided with certain financial services: loans or mortgages.

Problems with the current definition of poverty and proposed new definitions

With the advent of welfare states, the poor in Western countries today are incomparably better off than the poor of Victorian times. The social composition of the poor has changed over time, for example in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s it was pensioners and single parents, but in the 1980s it was mainly large families. Using one parameter (income) in the definition often leads to paradoxical situations, for example, when pensioners who own fully paid-off real estate (for example, a house for which the family has been paying for 20 years, or land) fall into the category of the poor. Today, the cost of industrial products is very low and it has become possible for the poor to purchase goods such as a television, computer or mobile phone, while at the same time the cost of services and housing rents are high. Therefore, today sociologists are considering a number of alternative definitions for poverty, the most common being: the inability to purchase or have access to a basic basket of services. The list of services from the basket is different, for example, for the USA it includes health insurance, a bank account in the UK, where medical care is covered by the state.

Poverty indicators

The main indicators of poverty are determined by the formula proposed by James Foster, Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke:

P_a=\frac(1)(H)\sum_(h=1)^q\left(\frac(Z_h-Y_h)(Z_h)\right)^a

where P is the overall poverty indicator;

a is a parameter showing which poverty indicator we are talking about;

Z_h is the poverty line of an individual household h, which depends on its composition;

Y_h - income level of an individual household h;

q - number of poor households;

H is the total number of households.

Based on the Foster-Grier-Thorbecke formula, the main poverty indicators are determined:

poverty coefficient and poverty level (a=0);

depth of poverty index (a=1);

poverty severity index (a=2).

Poverty ratio (share of poor households in the total number of households):

P_0=\frac(1)(H)\sum_(h=1)^q\left(\frac(Z_h-Y_h)(Z_h)\right)^0

The poverty rate characterizes only the prevalence of poverty and does not allow us to assess how much the income of poor households is below the poverty line.

Poverty depth index:

P_1=\frac(1)(H)\sum_(h=1)^q\left(\frac(Z_h-Y_h)(Z_h)\right)^1

The poverty depth index allows you to assess how much lower the income of poor households is relative to the poverty line.

Poverty severity index:

P_2=\frac(1)(H)\sum_(h=1)^q\left(\frac(Z_h-Y_h)(Z_h)\right)^2

Amartya Sen proposed his index, a synthetic indicator of poverty, combining three factors: the prevalence of this phenomenon, the material insufficiency of poor people, and the degree of their stratification by income. It is calculated by the formula:

S=L(N+\frac(d)(P)G_p)

Where S is the Sen index, L is the share of the poor population, N is the ratio of the average income deficit to the poverty line, d is the average income of poor households, P is the poverty line, G_p is the Gini coefficient for poor households.

Scope and profile of poverty

The highest absolute poverty according to UN data for 2004, based on the established national border, was observed in Madagascar - 71.3%, Sierra Leone - 70.2%, Mozambique - 69.4%. If we take 1 dollar a day as the poverty line (this indicator is used by the UN for developing countries), then the highest poverty according to 2005 data is observed in Nigeria (70.8%), Central African Republic (66.6%) and Zambia (63%). .8%). In the United States, the number of poor people in 2010 is estimated at 46.180 million people, which is 15.1% of the total population. However, the poverty line in 2010 by the US Census Bureau considers income to be $22,314 per year for a family of four. The number of poor people was at its highest level for the entire period of observation, that is, since 1959; and their percentage of the total population is the highest since 1984. The number of poor people in the United States has increased for the fourth year in a row. Today in Germany, almost a seventh of the population, 11.5 million people, lives at or below the poverty line, a number that has increased by a third in the last ten years.

Poverty in Russia

According to social studies, 85% of Russians indicated that the life of poor families differs from the life of others primarily in that these people eat poorly. More than half (52-55%) indicate poor housing, the inability to afford to buy medicine and see a good doctor, or buy decent clothes and shoes (sometimes, none at all) as a sign of poverty. Many noted that poor people are more vulnerable to those who attack their lives and property. Of those who do not complain about their health, only 13% are among the poor, and in the group of Russians who are seriously ill with something, this figure is already 50%. Researchers note that in the long-term (“chronic”) poverty of Russians there is a kind of point of no return, after which a person loses hope for changes for the better - on average, three years lived in this state. According to the director of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician Mikhail Gorshkov (2013), every fifth Russian has all the signs of a person beyond the poverty line. As of 2013, according to statistics in Russia, 8.8% of the population, or 12.5 million people, are officially considered poor (that is, have an income below the established subsistence level). In a study by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2013), the poor were conditionally divided into 2 groups: “by income” - those already taken into account by statistics, and “by deprivation” - those experiencing deprivation even with relatively good incomes (illness, dependents, etc.), in the last category in 2003, 39% of Russians were, in 2008 a third of the population, in 2013 - a quarter. A quarter of the “income” poor and 17% of the “deprivation” poor are in this state due to unemployment. At the same time, the head research dr sociol. science prof. Natalya Tikhonova notes that in Russia the poverty of working citizens is greater than ever. The same study noted that “Russian poverty clearly has a “female face””: among the “income” poor, women make up two-thirds, as well as among the chronically poor. According to the results of the study, it is noted that very often people retain marriage (including civil marriage) only for material reasons - only 44% of poor Russians and 69% of non-poor people said that they have good family relationships. With the appearance of children in a family, especially several, the standard of living rapidly deteriorates. The same applies to other dependents - the elderly, sick, disabled, etc. Families with three or more minor children have almost 50% of cases among the poor. A study by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Poverty and inequalities in modern Russia: 10 years later” (2013) notes that if ten years ago poor people still entertained the illusion that their problems were temporary, in recent years the number of those who he recognizes himself as an inhabitant of the “bottom”. 71% of Russians believe that the poor are “exactly the same as everyone else, they are just unlucky,” while almost 30% are confident that a specific person is largely to blame.

Directions and mechanisms for reducing poverty

Among the government measures to reduce poverty are:

creating conditions for production growth and, accordingly, for increasing the monetary income of the population,

maintaining macroeconomic stability,

implementation of anti-inflationary policy,

establishing a minimum wage,

development of social programs and mechanisms for their implementation.

Most of the poor are two-parent families with children

Which population groups are at increased risk of poverty and who makes up the majority of the poor?

In the most general form, the poverty profile that has developed in Russia allows us to distinguish three categories of households:

Traditionally poor(large and single-parent families, as well as families of pensioners living alone), which amount to approximately 30% of the total number of poor . The families of pensioners that make up them do not have a high level of poverty, which cannot be said about large and single-parent families.

The largest group of the poor population is families with children. Depending on the welfare indicators used to assess poverty, they amount to 50-60% of the total number of poor families (Tables 2, 3), and they account for 70-80% of the income gap, which indicates deep poverty of this type families Half of these families have a favorable demographic structure (married couples with 1-2 children and other relatives), so their poverty is not associated with a high dependent child burden.

Mixed families without children make up about 20% of the total number of poor people, and they account for 13-16% of the revenue shortfall.

Table 2. Demographic structure of poor households, %

Table 3. Proportion of poor people among different demographic groups of households, %

Figure 3. Risk of becoming poor in terms of income and disposable resources for individual demographic groups of households, %

The ratios in the standard of living and poverty of individual demographic groups of households, which are recorded according to the NOBUS survey in 2003, have been relatively stable over the past 10 years. Household budget survey data conducted by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) invariably indicate an increased risk of poverty among traditionally the most vulnerable groups (large and single-parent families). But on the other hand, there is an unacceptably high representation among the poor groups of two-parent families with children under 18 years of age, which account for more than half of the total deficit of disposable resources.

Thus, we can conclude that poverty in modern Russia is predominantly “childish” due to both the deep poverty of traditional risk groups and due to falling into the number of poor families that are quite prosperous in terms of demographic characteristics. The objective reality is that the birth of a second child in a family is, in the current economic conditions, an orientation towards the consumer behavior of the poor.

The risks of poverty in Russia, as in most countries, are not the same for different groups of the population. The main source of data for studying the structure of Russian poverty and the dynamics of its risks for various population groups at the individual and household levels is the Household Budget Survey.

It should be noted that HBS data are not used to directly calculate the poverty risks of the population and its individual categories. This is due to the fact that the results obtained from the survey significantly diverge from the macrostatistical assessment of poverty, exceeding it by 1.5-2 times. This discrepancy is caused, firstly, by the use of the mechanism before assessing the income of the population when calculating official poverty indicators, which underestimates the latter. The second reason for the differences is the traditionally weak representation of high-income groups of the population in sample surveys, combined with the tendency of respondents not to declare some incomes when taking a survey or to underestimate their actual amount, which, on the contrary, overestimate the poverty indicators of the population calculated on the basis of the collected information.

Despite this, HBS data make it possible to study the poverty profile in Russia in the context of basic socio-demographic characteristics, as well as to correlate the poverty risks of different population groups and assess changes in relative risks over time.

Figure 2 -- Profile of Russian poverty: type of settlement and economic activity of the poor, 2000-2013. Source:

As the results of a survey of household budgets show, since 2000, the share of rural residents in the structure of the poor population of Russia has been continuously increasing (Figure 2). Combined with ongoing urbanization and a gradual increase in the share of people living in urban areas, such dynamics indicate a constant increase in the relative risks of poverty among the rural population. The results of a 2013 survey show that residents of cities with a population of over a million are exposed to poverty risks 2.6 times lower than the population average, while persons living in small rural settlements (less than 200 people) experience 3.3 times higher risks of poverty.

data from a sample survey of household budgets (HBS, Rosstat)

Distinctive feature Russian poverty is characterized by a high proportion of the working poor: they account for up to two-thirds of the total structure of the poor population, and this figure has been gradually increasing over the last decade (Figure 2). At the same time, unemployed citizens experience the greatest risk of poverty: in 2013, the risk of poverty for them exceeded the average for the population by 2.2 times. In addition, the probability of falling into poverty above average applies to the economically inactive population of working age, and the lowest risks of poverty are characteristic of working pensioners.

Throughout the 2000s, the poverty risk of all population groups in terms of economic activity decreased (Figure 3). At the same time, the situation of the unemployed improved the least, which indicates the weak effectiveness of the system of social support measures addressed to this group. Over the period 2003-2013, the gap in the chances of being classified as poor with the average among the unemployed increased; Until recently, the same applied to the economically inactive population.

Figure 3 -- Dynamics of poverty risks in terms of economic activity of the population, 2000=100%, 2000-2013. Source:

Over the past two decades, the age profile of Russian poverty has also changed. The share of pensioners in the structure of the poor population gradually decreased. In 2000, men and women over retirement age accounted for 15% of the population poor according to the monetary criterion, after which this figure gradually decreased, reaching 10% by 2013 (Figure 4). The reduction in poverty among the elderly during the indicated period is due, firstly, to measures aimed at accelerating the increase in pensions, and secondly, the development of social benefit programs for the elderly. In particular, since 2010, an additional payment has been introduced for all non-working pensioners, increasing their individual income to the subsistence level. The share of young people under the age of 30 in the structure of the poor population increased until the end of the 2000s: if in 2000 this group accounted for 22% of the poor, then in 2009 it was already 26%. However, by 2013, this value returned to its original value. The opposite trend is observed in relation to the child population. Thus, since 2006, the share of children under 16 years of age in the structure of the poor has gradually increased, and by now it has already exceeded the 28% mark. Meanwhile, it is child poverty that leads to the most serious long-term consequences in terms of the economy and its development.

2.2. Socio-demographic profile of poverty.

The most important characteristic of poverty is its profile—the socio-demographic composition. The poor are mainly families with children, including single-parent families, and other low-income workers; unemployed; families in which one of the members is disabled; elderly people dependent on single source income. The largest group are families with children, especially single-parent families, and young families.

The distribution of low-income households by socio-demographic categories was as follows (see Table 6).

Table 6.

(percentage)

The differences in assessments of the level of household well-being in terms of cash income and disposable resources in 2000 are illustrated in Fig. 4.

The growth of wage differentiation has made significant adjustments to the standard of living of working families. Thus, married couples with one or two children, where two adults work, have traditionally belonged to the middle and high-income strata of the population. In the surveyed families with children, almost every second family has incomes below the subsistence level.

In 2000, the ratio of the minimum wage and the subsistence level of the working-age population decreased to 8.2% of the minimum amount of payments at the rate of the first category of the unified tariff schedule - to 9.6%, the minimum pension (and the subsistence level of a pensioner) - to 15%, monthly child benefit (and child’s subsistence level) – up to 4.8%. According to data for 2000, the official monetary income of almost 9% of the country's population was lower than the cost of the officially established minimum set of food products (Fig. 4.).

Rice. 4. Distribution of the population by average per capita cash income in 2000, rubles/month.

Thus, the scale of poverty, despite all the economic successes and favorable changes in income in 2000, is still one of the most pressing social and political problems.

Traditionally vulnerable groups of the population in the labor market are: single parents (mainly single mothers) raising minor children; young people who are unable to find work after graduation; the unemployed (especially those who have been unemployed for a long time); older workers; disabled people; migrants. Additional factors associated with the risk of poverty are low level of education, insufficient work experience, and family status. There is a feminization of poverty: groups with a high risk of poverty include single-parent families, usually headed by women, and older pensioners living alone, among whom women also predominate.

If we consider the gender and age composition of the population with monetary incomes below the subsistence level, then the highest proportion of poverty (as a percentage of the total number of the corresponding gender and age group) is observed among children aged 7 to 15 years (41.9%) and women aged from 31 to 54 years old (36.4%).

The presence of children in the family can be seen as a factor directly related to poverty, since children, as a rule, are dependent non-income earners. The more children in a family and the younger their age, the higher the likelihood that the family will be poor or very poor. According to a survey of household budgets, families with children are the largest group in terms of numbers with incomes below the subsistence level. Survey data showed that families with children under six years of age are more likely to be poor than families without children. Poverty increases steadily as the number of children in a family increases.

In low-income families with three or more children, there are 2-3 dependents per worker.

The average per capita income in families with four or more children is 2.5 times lower than in families with one child. In families consisting of five or more persons, the average per capita income is 1.7 times lower than in families consisting of one or two persons.

A distinctive feature of the current stage of development of our country is that, against the backdrop of social poverty (large and single-parent families with children, families with dependents, single pensioners, disabled people), economic poverty is intensifying, when able-bodied citizens cannot provide themselves with a socially acceptable level of well-being due to low wages or delays in their payment.

At the same time, the factors generating economic poverty are such that the mere receipt of work by the working-age population cannot serve as a source of well-being for the following reasons:

Lack of a labor market in depressed regions (especially in small towns and villages), where the economy is determined by a narrow range of enterprises (and often one - city-forming ones) of stagnating industries;

The regulatory framework for remuneration is such that it does not allow employees to officially receive decent remuneration depending on the efficiency and quality of work.

Taking into account that wages are the main source of income for the majority of Russians and account for two-thirds of the income structure of the entire population, it is quite natural that the situation in the labor market had a dominant influence on the incidence of poverty during the period of economic transformation.

Despite the fact that market reforms open up new opportunities for using the labor potential and business activity of citizens, the decline in the economically active population continued until the end of 1998. Considering that poverty among the unemployed is 1.5-2 times higher than the national average population, it should be recognized that the process of increasing the number of employed and reducing unemployment represents the most positive shift in the structure of the economically active population in recent years. At the same time, the relative improvement in economic indicators is not yet associated with qualitative changes in the structure of employment and the composition of jobs; accordingly, the problem of large-scale poverty remains. It must be admitted that government programs Employment promotion has not yet taken into account institutional changes and trends in the formation of labor markets.

The change in the profile of poverty, namely the emergence of the category of “new poor” or “working poor”, is associated primarily with the low competitive position of domestic production, which was formed in conditions of a closed national economy, and the country’s unwillingness to join world economic relations and the global commodity market.

Most Russian enterprises, despite the current economic recovery, are still losing in international competition. In particular, up to 60% of goods consumed by the Russian population in the textile, light, food, and footwear industries are still imported from abroad.

Thus, the causes of Russian poverty are primarily the sluggish adaptation of the national economy to the processes of globalization, the uncompetitiveness of entire industries and productions, low labor productivity and its weak organization, the prevalence of low-paid jobs and a shortage of specialists with the required qualifications.

The significant potential for low wages and the closely related potential for unemployment (the threat of massive layoffs of the excess number of employees in organizations and enterprises is quite real if wage growth is not accompanied by qualitative changes in the structure of the labor force) is one way or another transformed into large-scale poverty, which occurs in still in a latent form. In general, it must be stated that the current pattern of poverty in the country is primarily the result of low levels of income from employment. Factors associated with the extremely unsatisfactory situation on the labor market and the low quality of jobs are dominant among the reasons for the differentiation of families by poverty status. In this regard, Russian poverty can be defined in terms of “economic” or “market poverty” - poverty associated with the place of specific categories of the economically active population in the labor market.