Epidemiological Crisis in the First Half of 2020: Socio-Economic Situation

Tatiana M. Maleva – Director of Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Doctor of Business Administration (Moscow, Russia). Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Elena Е. Grishina – Leading Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Candidate of Economic Sciences (Moscow, Russia). Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Aleksandra Ya. Burdyak – Senior Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow, Russia). E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Yulia B. Chumakova – Researcher of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow, Russia). Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In 2Q 2020 various sectors of the economy recovered differently. Retail trade volumes were close to the previous year’s level (97.4% by July 2019). Consumption of paid services was 74.5% in annual terms. The total retail trade turnover for January-July 2020 decreased by 5.8% compared to the same period of the previous year. For the seven months since the beginning of the year 20% less paid services have been provided to the population. Consumer inflation remains low.

ILO unemployment rate reached 6.3% by July. The number of unemployed increased to 4.7 million people. Persons with higher education were mostly affected by the crisis. Almost half of the new unemployed had their last job in the wholesale and retail trade, hotel and restaurant business and in construction.

In April 2020, real wages fell by 2% compared to April 2019, in May-June they began to rise by 0,6–1,0%. In 2Q 2020 real gross wages of employees decreased by 0.1% compared to the same period of 2019. As a result of negative trends in the economy real disposable money income of the population decreased by 8.0% compared to 2Q 2019. In the first half of 2020 the share of people, who consider their financial situation as «bad» or «very bad» increased to 28.3%. The level of income inequality was lower than in the first half of 2019.

The share of poor increased from 12.7% population in 2Q 2019 to 13.5% in 2Q 2020 (poor are people with per capita money income below the minimum subsistence level). Overall poverty rate for the first half of this year (13.2%) was lower than in the same period of 2019. The negative consequences of significant real incomes decline on poverty were mitigated by social support measures for families with children.

The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.

Key words: labor market, wages, population monetary income, consumption of goods and services, poverty, social support programs.