Estimates indicate that the top 10% rich accounted for 29.7% of all household money income in 2005, whereas the figure for the bottom 10% poor was only 2% compared with 30% and 2%, respectively, in 2004.
The statistics suggest that Russia's social structure has not undergone any radical changes in the reporting period.
According to estimates, 41.3% of Russian households received the per capita money income of more than 7,000 rubles (about $235) in 2005 compared with 30.8% a year earlier, while 0.9% of Russians had a monthly income of less than 1,000 rubles (about $35) against 1.9% in 2004.
Household money income is expected to exceed expenditures by 152.9 billion rubles (about $5.3 billion) in 2005, after final figures are calculated, whereas in 2004 Russians received 196.1 billion rubles (about $6.8 billion) more than they spent. In particular, household money income totaled 13,400 billion rubles (about $468 billion) and household spending equaled 13,300 billion rubles (about $465 billion) in 2005.
Russian households spent 70.9% of their money income on goods and services, 9.7% on obligatory payments, 9.5% on savings and 8.8% on the purchase of foreign currency.
According to statistics, the minimum set of food products in Russia cost 1,349.1 rubles (about $47) in late December 2005.
