ALEXEY VEDEV: “INCREASE IN REAL DISPOSABLE INCOMES BY 3.1% IS A VERY GOOD RESULT”

Alexey Vedev, Head of Financial Studies Department of the Gaidar Institute, commented to RBC on the Rosstat data related to growth of real disposable incomes of Russians by 3.1% in 2021.

Increase in real disposable incomes by 3.1% is a very good result taking into consideration that inflation in 2021 was at the level of 8.4%, Alexey Vedev said.

A sharp slowdown in the positive dynamics in Q4 is due to a change in the trend: if in January-September there was a recovery growth of revenues against the resetting of the economy and the release of pent-up demand after the pandemic, by the end of the year the situation had stabilized. According to Vedev, he does not expect a significant increase in revenues in 2022: they will change by inertia and will show growth by 1.7% at the end of the year.

The data of Rosstat also show that the decline of real incomes in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, has been significantly revised, from 2.8% to 2%. The Rosstat explained that the revision was due to revised data on regional social support provided to households. Thus, the real disposable incomes increased by about 1% at the end of 2021 compared to the pre-COVID 2019.