Poverty in modern Russian society. Abstract of the problem of poverty in modern russia

#poverty #society #problem

Poverty is not only an economic but also a deeply social and cultural problem. Due to the high differentiation of income in society, negative consequences occur, which in the future may lead to irreversible economic processes in the life of the country. Poverty, one of the most acute problems of the present time, hinders the successful economic development of the country, limits the population's ability to consume various goods.

The negative economic and social processes taking place in the country lead to inequality and stratification of society. Already now, according to Ruslan Grinberg, director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Russia, unlike Europe, there is practically no middle class, there are only two percent of very rich people: “Almost everyone else can be attributed to those who are fighting for existence. We have about 30 million working people receive a salary of less than 10,000 rubles a month. This phenomenon is considered a scandalous situation. " Currently, the number of people not involved in production processes is increasing. As a rule, they are excluded from economic production and cannot return to it on their own, they become dependent on the state, additional material subsidies. In this case, people cannot satisfy even the elementary physiological, biological needs for survival. It is more and more often heard that the population of our country is lumpenizing and this category of people has already developed a special way of life, worldview, mentality.

A real subculture of poverty has formed in the Russian Federation, which includes about 5 million Russians, excluding homeless people and illegal migrants. Experts of the Russian government working on the development strategy of Russia until 2020 presented a report stating that the share of the economically inactive population among the poor of working age is growing. “The reproduction of the poor began with the simultaneous formation of a special subculture of poverty in them,” the report says. In large cities, representatives of this stratum of society form the urban bottom, which was previously absent in Russian society in this form and scale. A special group of people has been formed, consisting of homeless people and illegal migrants, accustomed to this way of life, they do not want to “stop being poor”. In words, they agree and want to get out of this situation, but when it comes to real efforts, persistent aspirations, they most often retreat. At the same time, they have dreams and hopes for a better future and that they will become rich.

Unfortunately, in a state of chronic poverty, an urgent problem modern society... These are large families, disabled people, pensioners. Due to the closure of city-forming enterprises in single-industry towns and small villages, people are left without work, and their families without means of subsistence. In Russia there are “working poor”, people who spend up to 80% or more of their earnings on food and utility bills.

If such families have children, then the situation worsens significantly. Children born to poor families do not have the same benefits as children from wealthy families. Poor people live in overcrowded and criminally prone parts of the city, in uncomfortable dwellings, eat worse than others, attend poor schools, drop out early and do not receive the necessary qualifications. As a result, they have poorer starting conditions in life, and they are more likely to start working careers from unskilled and low-paid jobs. They do not develop the qualities necessary for the correct perception of the surrounding reality. Parents, as a rule, are poorly educated, unable to help them in their studies. If a family has chronic malnutrition or low-calorie nutrition, aggravated by alcoholism, then inferior offspring are born. All this leads to the fact that in the future we get disabled citizens of our country, people with poor health and educational gaps. Unfortunately, people have been in a state of lack of economic resources for more than a decade, raising their children and even grandchildren in a state of deep poverty. In connection with what is happening, we can talk about the formation in Russia of a special class of the poor, the poor with their own culture, traditions, customs and way of life. Often, a lot is said about the fact that people who find themselves in a difficult life situation and lead an asocial lifestyle have increased aggressiveness, anger, welcome the cult of strength and equality, a propensity for adventurous and risky ventures, blaming others for their troubles, have a specific understanding of the success of life ... They are characterized by isolation and conscious isolationism.

This group of people lives outside the framework of society and the generally accepted way of life and culture. This statement became the basis for the study of the "underclass" in Western culture. But this definition is often not entirely suitable for Russian reality, not everyone who is statistically poor shares the values ​​of this subculture. Modern researchers (W. Wilson, K. Jenks and others) introduce the concepts of “worthy” and “unworthy” poor, thereby further narrowing and modifying the group of potential carriers of the “culture of poverty”. In their opinion, the “unworthy” poor are those who themselves are to blame for the constant poverty, people leading an asocial lifestyle. Those studying this problem say that it is unreasonable to transfer the above negative characteristics to the lifestyle and subculture of the poor in general. The contradictions in the analysis of the subculture of the poor are determined not only by differences in the interpretation of this social category, but also by its uncertainty. Consider

By examining the social hierarchy, one can come to the conclusion that only an insignificant part of society, having a special subculture, opposes itself to society. Otherwise, the poor form a subculture that is included in the general context, without contradicting the basic moral and ethical foundations. Unfortunately, in our country, people who adhere to the moral and ethical foundations of society and do not violate its laws fall under the category of the poor. Working for little or no wages, they have not changed the values ​​of a moral and spiritual nature and are trying to avoid degradation. Russia is developing its own special subculture of poverty, with the presence of negative aspects, but most of its components are strikingly different from the generally accepted norms of this concept. Studying the characteristics of the life of the poor population, patterns of behavior, is especially important at the present stage development of society.

This is necessary to reduce the negative consequences of the culture of poverty, to reduce social tension in society. Due to the uniqueness of this phenomenon in Russia, the study of the subculture of poverty must be considered not only from an economic point of view, but above all from a social, cultural and moral - spiritual position. A change in values ​​of a moral and spiritual nature can lead to degradation not only of the adult population living in poverty, but also of children who find themselves in this difficult situation. Economists propose various ways to reduce poverty in the population, from a progressive tax to targeted aid. But in this situation, changes are necessary not only of an economic nature, but also a change in the worldview of people, their way and lifestyle.

Bibliographic list:

1.Kislitsyna O. A. Inequality in the distribution of income and health in modern Russia[Text] / O. A. Kislitsina // M .: ISEPN RAN 2005S.376

2. Shevyakov A. Yu. Social policy and reforming distribution relations [Text] / A. Yu. Shevyakov // Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences 2007 Volume 77. No. 3C. 195-210.

3. Yurevich A.V. Excessive income inequality as a threat to the national security of Russia [electronic resource] / A. V. Yurievich, A. L. Zhuravlev, M. A. Yurievich // National Security-2013 - No. 2URL: http: // enotabene.ru/nb/article_550.html

Andreeva S.E., senior teacher Sapozhkov S.V.

COURSE WORK

in the discipline "Macroeconomics"

Inequality and Poverty in Contemporary Russia

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… ... 3

1 Inequality and Poverty as Socio-Economic Phenomena: Theoretical Aspects ………… .................................. ..............................................5

1.1 The nature of socio-economic inequality and its consequences .... ... .5

1.2 Concept, causes, criteria and socio-economic consequences of poverty ...................................... ...........................……………………………….nine

1.3 Instruments and mechanisms for solving the problem of unequal distribution of incomes and poverty in a market economy .............. ……… ...... 14

2 Socio-economic inequality and poverty as problems of the Russian economy ………………………………………………………………………… .14

2.1 Background, characteristics, trends, measurement problems and results of inequality in Russia .................................... …………………………………...19

2.2 Economic analysis poverty in Russia: scale, territorial differentiation, migration and the problem of reproduction ....................... ... ..22

2.3 Priority directions for solving the problem of inequality and poverty in the domestic economy and the possibility of using foreign experience. 25

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… .38

List of sources used …………………………………………… ... 40

Application................................................. .................................................. ...... 42

Introduction

This work is devoted to the consideration of the issues of unequal distribution of labor income and poverty in modern Russia. Poverty has always been an urgent problem, but in Russia this issue is especially acute, since in conditions of poverty, including the state of poverty, today almost every fourth person lives in our country. It is poverty that determines the limited access of a significant part of the population of the Russian Federation to development resources: high-paying jobs, high-quality education and health services, the possibility of successful socialization of children and youth, etc.

Growth in labor incomes, growing poverty and deepening income differentiation are becoming a direct threat economic security the state as a whole, and its territorial and administrative entities. Hence the need arises for a deep and thorough study of the problem.

Scientists at different times have given different definitions to this concept. The Englishmen C. Booth and S. Rowntree, who studied poverty at the end of the 19th century, took the individual's ability to satisfy his basic needs for food, clothing and housing as a starting point in defining poverty. Russian scientists V.I. Vidyapin, A.I.Dobrynin, G.P. Zhuravleva call a situation in which needs cannot be sufficiently satisfied.

The aim of this work is to study Russian poverty and inequality in the economic aspect, their characteristics and ways of overcoming. Based on the specified purpose of the work, the main tasks are:

1) analyze methods for measuring the level of poverty and economic inequality in Russia;

2) explore the features and characteristics of poverty and inequality in Russia;

3) consider the consequences of poverty and economic inequality for the Russian economy;

4) identify possible ways exit from this situation and consider the policy social protection population.

The subject of the research is the causes, consequences of poverty and ways to overcome it.

The object of the research is the income of the population, the sources of their formation and the methods of distribution in modern Russian society. Information base term paper includes:

Official statistical materials on labor, living standards, poverty, related to the methodology of studying and overcoming poverty, contained in the publications of the UN Statistical Division, the ILO Bureau of Statistics, Rosstat, regional services statistics;

The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the fundamental works of the classics of economic science, studies of domestic and foreign scientists devoted to the problems of the standard of living and well-being of the population, the problems of poverty and ways to overcome it, work on selected problems.

To solve the set tasks, the work used the methods of systemic, logical, historical, macroeconomic, economic and statistical analysis, as well as the dialectical method.

In accordance with the purpose and objectives of the study, a hypothesis is put forward: Poverty as a social phenomenon cannot be completely eradicated, but it is possible to reduce its severity with the help of social programs and social policy of the state.

1 Inequality and Poverty as Socio-Economic Phenomena: Theoretical Aspects

1.1 The nature of social inequality and its consequences

In each specific society, there is a variety in relationships, social roles that people play, their positions and personal differences. Inequality is determined by different conditions of people's access to resources of spiritual and material consumption, which are of a limited nature. It is social stratification that best describes the system of inequality between social groups. The problem of social inequality is a consequence of the social and economic heterogeneity of labor, which is the reason for the acquisition of power, prestige and property by some people and the absence of these categories among representatives of other social groups.
In social stratification, the phenomenon of the inheritance of positions is observed. The essence of this principle is that not all capable and educated individuals tend to take the desired high position. There are two selective mechanisms - unequal conditions of access to quality education and different opportunities for obtaining a particular position, when individuals have an equal degree of preparedness.

Social stratification has a traditional character. It also has its own forms. The intensity of stratification depends on the form of inequality. Not a single hysterical object has extreme stratification forms.

The origins of inequality have long-standing roots, and the formation of inequality is based on unevenness, limited access to material and spiritual resources. To describe and define social inequality, the concept of social stratification has been adopted. To consider inequality, it is most convenient to start from the theory of labor heterogeneity, which is the reason for the emergence and expansion of the power of property, prestige by some at the expense of others. At the same time, with social inequality, there is inheritance, consolidation and expansion of positions, and this, in turn, leads to the fact that initially high education does not always provide an opportunity to acquire power positions, while the selection mechanism comes into play. Having various forms, stratification assumes that, depending on the intensity within the form, the intensity of stratification also increases. This situation significantly reduces the role of the middle class, deprives it of its multiplicity, which contributes to the emergence of conflicts in society.

Each class has its own specific characteristic, for example, wealth is inherent in the upper class, but at the same time financial resources are constantly available to all sectors of society, and therefore to measure the quantity money supply you can use the concept of "income". Income is the amount of treasury notes received in various types and varieties. For example, wages are characteristic only for certain segments of the population, which are called hired labor. People with excess income, in other words, the rich, do not belong to them. In addition to these strata, there are also self-employed people who perform the same amount of work as other people, but receive all the income personally, in other words, work for themselves. People who are far below the poverty line are not included in the classes and are called the underclass, that is, those who are below everyone else.
The essence of inequality lies in the fact that there is national wealth, access to which has a perfect minority, which receives most of the income.

Economists tend to be interested in income distribution. "The division of income between people and their distribution by factors are two different tasks", - wrote F. Wieser at the beginning of this century. economic theory the distribution of social income is considered both from the point of view of functional distribution and on the basis of personal distribution.

Personal income distribution — it is the distribution of income among individuals, families or households.

The functional distribution of income is their distribution between factors: labor, capital, Natural resources and entrepreneurial ability.

As a result of the functional distribution of income, such primary incomes as wages, interest, rent and profit are formed.

The functional distribution of income shows how much of the national income is accounted for by wages, rent, interest and profit. The bulk of people receive the overwhelming part of their income in the form of wages (in developed countries ah this figure is 75%). The share of rent as payment for land (this does not include economic rent received in the labor market) accounts for 0.4% of the national income, the share of interest payments - 9% total income, on profit, respectively - 15.6%. Personal income distribution shows how income is distributed between various groups population. It's no secret that this income is distributed unevenly. To visualize the degree of inequality in the distribution of income among population groups in world practice, the Lorentz curve is used (Fig. 1).

The abscissa shows the percentage of families, and the ordinate shows the share in total income. The entire population and all incomes are divided into 5 groups (20% each). If incomes were evenly distributed, then this would be shown by a straight line going from the origin at an angle of 45 ° (here the Lorentz curve indicates absolute equality). In fact, incomes are unevenly distributed, and this is illustrated by the curve below the 45 ° straight line (the Lorentz curve indicates the actual distribution of income). The further from the 45 ° straight line the Lorentz curve is located, the greater the degree of inequality in society. With absolute inequality, 1% of families have all 100% of the income, while the rest will have nothing (the Lorentz curve forms a right angle with the apex at point M).

except decile ratio, showing the uneven distribution of income, the economy uses the Gini index - the coefficient of concentration of income. It is the ratio of the area between the real Lorentz curve and the 45 ° line to the area below the 45 ° line. The Gini index is between 0 and 1: the closer the Gini is to 1, the more unevenly income is distributed.

Changes in the income of the population and the stratification of society lead to the most negative consequences. Strata of people below the poverty line are being created, which is unacceptable in a developed society. There is a moral stratification of society into "us" and "others", the community of goals, interests, a sense of healthy patriotism are lost. As a result of the division of society, the population of regions and individual citizens into rich and poor, interregional and even interethnic contradictions arise, which leads to the destruction of the unity of Russia. There is an outflow of qualified workers to areas that do not require relevant knowledge, abroad. As a result, the educational and professional potential of society is deteriorating, knowledge-intensive industries are degrading. As a result of the low standard of living, the labor activity of the population decreases, health deteriorates, the birth rate decreases, which leads to demographic crises.

1.2 Concept, causes, criteria and socio-economic consequences of poverty

Many prominent scientists were interested in the problem of poverty - A. Smith, T. Malthus, D. Ricardo, G. Spencer, J. Proudhon, E. Recluse, K. Marx, F. Engels. From the eighteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, two main approaches to the study of poverty prevailed abroad: the first is represented by the social Darwinian concept of poverty. Poverty was seen as an inevitable consequence of the struggle for survival, the poor were considered personally responsible for their material hardships. The second approach - the egalitarian one - was based on the principle of equalization, poverty was considered as a form and measure of exploitation of workers, two types of poverty were identified: absolute and relative.

In connection with the emergence and reproduction of socially vulnerable strata of society, poverty of a part of the population is becoming an acute and chronic problem. Poverty is a state of need, a lack of livelihoods, which does not allow satisfying the urgent needs of an individual or a family. Poverty is considered one of the most pressing social problems in modern society. As a state of hungry life, poverty has existed from time immemorial, but it was considered a completely common phenomenon inherent in the overwhelming majority of the population.

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

1) economic (unemployment, low wages, low labor productivity, non-competitiveness of the industry),

2) socio-medical (disability, old age, high level morbidity),

3) demographic (single-parent families, a large number of dependents in the family),

4) socio-economic (low level of social guarantees),

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

6) political (military conflicts, forced migration),

7) regional and geographical (uneven development of regions).

In world practice, there are three main concepts of poverty definition:

1) The absolute concept of poverty

The concept of absolute poverty is closely related to the concept of the poverty line. Poverty line 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 consumption or income is below the poverty line.

If we accept the poverty line as the necessary means to maintain livelihood, then we can define all means above this line as discretionary income. Sometimes several poverty lines are used: for poverty itself and for extreme poverty (poverty).

The World Bank sets the threshold for absolute poverty to exist at less than $ 1.25 per day (based on 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 with a small gap from it. It should also be noted that this allows for situations where poverty and inequality are increasing, and the number of people below the poverty line is decreasing.

2) The relative concept of poverty

In contrast to absolute poverty, they bring relative poverty. Relative poverty measures set a relative poverty line and measure the income of the population to it. In the case when the real incomes of the entire population grow, and their distribution does not change, the 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 can 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 quantify a set of benefits. Comparison of incomes with the share of fashion and the harmonic mean are additional tools for studying 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, it becomes impossible to maintain a lifestyle habitual for most members of a given society. He based his analysis of poverty on the notion of a set of experienced deprivation, multidimensional deprivation, which he understood as "the state of an observable and demonstrable disadvantage of an individual, family or group against the background of a 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 state of the living environment, conditions and nature of work, he also used indicators of social deprivation, including the nature of employment, the specifics of leisure activities, education, etc.

Currently under this definition poverty has developed in two directions.

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 when the living standards of all social strata rise.

3) Subjective concept of poverty

Subjective poverty is a concept of poverty based on the belief that only the individual himself 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 to be poor. It is possible to identify the subjective absolute poverty line based on public opinion, and then compare the income of the population with it.

Poverty criteria predetermine a set of poverty indicators. In turn, objectively, there are several sections of poverty criteria, and within each such section there are separate types of poverty criteria. Poverty has several levels, which differ in material status, social and professional activities, and leisure preferences of people.

In poverty, two levels stand out quite clearly - just poverty, and poverty. The level and way of life, corresponding rather to the concept of "poverty" rather than "simple poverty", are distinguished by the following characteristics: accumulated debts, including rent, the absence of such household items (even very old ones), such as a vacuum cleaner, furniture wall or soft furniture, carpet, color television, and poor living conditions. Among those who fell into the category of "beggars", the majority live in hostels, communal apartments or rent a house. Add to this the inaccessibility of any paid services, poor family relationships, on average lower incomes than those of the simply poor.

In general, it can be said that at the poverty level, the families of the "old" poor, who in Soviet times belonged to the most disadvantaged strata of society, are concentrated at the level of poverty, to quite ordinary families.

One of social consequences poverty is the social disintegration of people. A significant contingent of the poor, who find themselves deprived of opportunities for a decent life, "drop out" of social and economic life. There is a disintegration of society, the separation of its elements, which manifests itself in the disappearance of common social values, social unity, common interests, etc.

The rapid feminization of poverty is a particular problem for modern society. Women are particularly vulnerable to poverty due to limited access to benefits, wages and income in the informal sector. The position of the female part of the population is aggravated by massive, lingering unemployment. Women are laid off and laid off in the first place, which is explained by the fact that women, due to their responsibilities for procreation, need additional benefits (disadvantageous for employers). An analysis of the incomes of socio-demographic groups indicates the lowest income status of unemployed women aged 30 to 50. The situation is aggravated by the fact that due to the unfavorable development of marriage and family relations (high divorce rate, growth of illegitimate births), women, often before they lost their jobs, were the only breadwinners of the family. Thus, the feminization of poverty leads to the fact that minor children live in poverty. The atmosphere of life in poverty can leave an imprint on the further life of children, contribute to the further transmission of this way of life. Poverty is the main source of so-called disadvantaged children.

Poverty is a factor in social tension. Fighting what they see as unfair distribution of income, the poor are prone to committing crimes and violent methods of political struggle. Even if the poor do not commit acts of violence against others, the society in which they live still suffers losses. A poor person cannot fully participate in the life of society, his creative potential does not open up and disappears fruitlessly. Especially tragic is “inherited” poverty, when the children of the poor, with the same abilities, have much less chance of self-realization than their peers who were born in families with normal incomes.

Changes in the income of the population and the stratification of society lead to the most negative economic consequences. There is an outflow of qualified workers to areas that do not require relevant knowledge, abroad. As a result, the educational and professional potential of society is deteriorating, knowledge-intensive industries are degrading. As a result of the low standard of living, the labor activity of the population decreases, health deteriorates, the birth rate decreases, which leads to demographic crises. Poverty also strongly affects economic growth, leads to a decrease in the competitiveness of the economy, increases socio-economic differences between regions, between cities and rural areas. Poverty leads either to a change in the normal life of a person, or to his death. Therefore, the fight against it is a top priority.

1.3 Instruments and mechanisms for solving the problem of unequal distribution of incomes and poverty in a market economy

The problems of justice and efficiency, economic security and economic growth, wealth and poverty have long worried humanity. And this is no coincidence, since even in richest countries the world is experiencing inequality in income distribution, poverty and misery. Many scientists have studied the issues of income distribution and the problems of their differentiation, studied the objective causes of income inequality and its impact on economic growth and welfare of the population.

The problem of increasing the income of the population seems to be an urgent task of macro economic policy for two interrelated circumstances: the need to attract the population as an investor; provision of expanded reproduction of workers who are interested in the growth of their labor productivity.

Economic science to a certain extent explained the principles of distribution of benefits in society: according to work, according to factors of production and according to the natural human right to life. In practice, all these principles turned out to be imperfect. Equitable distribution of income has not yet been ensured, which would accurately reflect the degree of inequality in labor costs and the corresponding sufficiency in consumption of certain groups of the population. As a result of the fact that the fairness of income distribution and labor efficiency are not ensured due to the lack of proper motivation among employees, the main condition for the development of society is not achieved - sustainability economic system... In addition, the extremely uneven distribution material goods and income in a market economy often interferes with its effective functioning, causing negative social consequences.

The concepts of "equality" and "poverty" are basic in a socially oriented economy. On their basis, social security is built, the role of which in any state is reduced to reducing poverty and increasing equality. However, both of these concepts are not identical. A society with high levels of inequality can have very low levels of poverty and vice versa. Poverty is determined by the existence of living conditions for some members of society that do not meet the accepted minimum standards. In the unanimous opinion of economists and politicians, poverty is an unconditional evil and therefore must be combated. There is no such consensus about equality. First of all, the definition of "equality" is rather vague, which makes it possible to interpret it broadly and makes it difficult to accurately determine the degree of inequality in society.

N. Barr defines equality as the provision of equal opportunities for all members of society1. In this regard, opinions differ regarding the choice of social policies aimed at increasing equality. Socialists, who interpret inequality in a narrower sense - as property inequality, believe that this is the same negative phenomenon as poverty, because it leads to social tension and hinders the development of the abilities of individuals belonging to the poor. Therefore, the state must make significant efforts and spend resources to reduce inequality. The result of this policy is progressive income taxation, high inheritance taxes, and a wide range of social programs designed for the poor. In turn, liberals, who understand equality in a broader sense, insist that state intervention in the economic activities of agents is a violation of the principle of equality, since in this case, the state takes away part of the income from more entrepreneurial members of society and thus suppresses the manifestation of private initiative. According to liberals, such a practice can lead to a slowdown in economic growth, as a result of which everyone will lose: rich and poor alike. Therefore, liberals advocate more moderate social programs aimed exclusively at reducing poverty.

Thus, a deep analysis of the problem of inequality is objectively hampered by two features of the subjective perception of this phenomenon. First, most researchers who are convinced that inequality itself is unfair ignore the question of what inequality might be considered unfair and why. Second, when talking about material inequality, social scientists consider poverty to be the most obvious manifestation of it, and therefore the fight against inequality is often reduced to the fight against poverty.

In general, the problem of uneven distribution of wealth has been considered quite rarely in the economic and sociological literature; until the 19th century, the cause of such injustice was seen in coercion based on force. In the 19th century, first, Henri Saint-Simon, and then Karl Marx showed that entrepreneurs (a new rising class) have a real right to claim a significant part of the social product, and that capitalist production is based on the principle of equivalent exchange, which was unusual for previous eras. Thus, already at that time they began to recognize that income differentiation was based on the objective laws of social development.

Indeed, it is advisable to consider income differentiation as objectively determined ratios in the incomes of various socio-economic groups and population strata, which are the result of a complex interaction of economic, demographic and social factors. At the same time, income differentiation is not only a consequence of inequality in efficiency and labor productivity. It is also the result of unequal distribution of ownership of the means of production. According to many researchers, differentiation is determined by the fact that one social group acquires special positions in society that allow it to redistribute most of the social wealth in its favor. Such an opportunity opens before it control over the rarest resource of this or that society, the rarest factor of production. In the early stages of social development, the most important resource was military force, the monopoly on it determined the dominant class of society. In a later period, when direct coercion was supplemented by some elements of economic, land and other conditions of agricultural production became the most important resource, and land ownership determined belonging to the dominant feudal class. As the opportunity arose to create and accumulate wealth by other methods, the role of land as the main factor of production declined.

A.2.3 In modern conditions, the system of social protection of the population is of great importance for the economic and social development Russia. Its qualitative and quantitative parameters determine the order in the country, the degree of consent in society, the stability of economic dynamics, which is especially important in the period economic crisis... When shaping the further policy of socio-economic development of the regions of Russia, special attention should be paid to the factors that ensure the growth of economic indicators. One of these factors is the provision of social protection for the population. Social protection is a set of institutions and a set of economic, social and legal measures of economic policy aimed at preventing or mitigating the negative consequences of social risks and threats for an individual or a group of people and providing all citizens with equal opportunities to maintain a certain standard of living.

2 Socio-economic inequality and poverty as problems of the Russian economy

2.1 Features, trends, measurement problems and results of inequality in Russia

The transition in Russia from a state-controlled system of generating incomes of the population and a state-guaranteed system of social security for the entire population to market principles of forming citizens' incomes inevitably caused cardinal changes in the entire income system. This is evidenced by the data in the table [Appendix A]. These changes were combined with a drop in production volumes, the destruction of traditional economic ties and the privatization of state property.

There has been a significant change in the sources of income of the population. On the one hand, there was a decrease in the share of wages in terms of monetary income due to an objective and justified increase in income from property and entrepreneurial activity... The increase in property income was especially significant. The latter increased from 1% in 2002 to 9.1% in 2010. Income from entrepreneurial activity had more complex dynamics. The increase in their share at the first stage (1991-1993) was replaced by another trend - stabilization since 2006. The share of social transfers remained practically unchanged.

A number of unfavorable trends in incomes and living standards of the population developed at the first stage of the transitional economy in Russia.

First, a significant proportion of hidden cash income has emerged. The data in the table show that the share of these expenses in wages at the end of the first stage amounted to at least 24 - 25% of all monetary incomes of the population. Estimates show that this share was stable throughout the entire phase. At the same time, the share of official wages in comparison with 1990 has decreased by almost 2 times - 74.1 to 38.7%. It should be noted that the amount of hidden payment is heterogeneous. It also includes partly income from entrepreneurial activities. The presence of such a significant share of hidden cash income not only leads to budget losses, but also plays a destructive role in establishing a social protection system and building social sustainability.

Second, the transformations at the first stage (1991-1993) led to the formation of a pronounced unfavorable tendency of stable inequality, significant differentiation and even polarization of incomes in society. Significant socio-economic differentiation in income in a market economy is inevitable due to a number of reasons: objective differences in wages, social priorities for supporting certain types of activities, higher incomes in the business environment, etc. However, the processes that took place in the Russian economy at the first stage were characterized by the most acute form of inequality - income polarization.

Thus, as a result of the transformations at the first stage, significantly different, in fact, polar groups were formed in terms of income, level and nature of consumption of goods. This model of income distribution ultimately contradicts the social stability of society and global trends in developed countries. At the second stage of transformations, the Russian economy faced a difficult task - to make significant changes in the nature of the distribution of income in society while increasing the volume of monetary income per capita.

The complexity of this task is evidenced by the fact that although for 2002 - 2009. nominal per capita money incomes increased significantly - from 3337.2 rubles. in December 2002 up to 15,880 rubles. in December 2009, this growth was not accompanied by serious changes in the structure of household income towards a more equitable distribution of benefits. This is evidenced by the further, albeit slower, growth of the Ginny ratio, which reached 0.406 in 2008, and the continued growth of the fund ratio. Of course, it is positive that the growth of these indicators has slowed down, but the previous tendencies of income polarization are still far from overcoming.

The measures taken to legalize hidden income through the introduction of a single tax rate on personal income has somewhat reduced the share of this income. According to the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, the bulk of the population's cash expenditures are consumer spending - their share decreased from 77.7% in 2002 to 68.5% in 2009. At the same time, the share of purchases of goods also steadily decreased (from 62 to 54.4%), while the share of payment for services, on the contrary, increased - from 14.9% to 18.8%. However, it should be noted that in 2010 the tendency to reduce consumer spending in monetary expenditures of the population changed significantly. The specified share in 2010 compared to 2009 increased from 68.5 to 69.3%. The consumer activity of the population in 2010 was so high that it led to an increase in the share of consumer spending in the population's income, which had been continuously decreasing since 2005. In general, such dynamics is quite progressive, taking into account the growth of the total income level and the formation of a more balanced structure of population expenditures. ... A positive aspect of the progressive change in the structure of household expenditures is also the trend towards an increase in household savings. Savings in deposits and securities in last years gradually occupied an increasing share in cash expenditures (3.7% in 2007 and 5.7% in 2008).

2.2 Economic analysis of poverty in Russia: scale, territorial differentiation, migration, the problem of reproduction a

Poverty is the economic situation of a part of the population and families that have a relatively low supply of monetary, property and other resources and, therefore, are at a low level of their material and spiritual needs. As an officially established quantitative indicator that measures the scale of poverty, the poverty rate (index of the number of the poor population) is used, which is defined as the proportion of the population with average per capita money incomes below the subsistence level. In addition, the coefficient of extreme poverty is calculated - the proportion of the population with average per capita money incomes below half of the subsistence minimum. The disadvantage of these indicators is that they reflect the number of households classified as poor, but do not determine how poor they are.

From the point of view of the population's income, the assessment of the standard of living is carried out through the indicator of the subsistence minimum. The subsistence minimum is an indicator of the minimum composition and structure of consumption, material goods and services necessary to preserve human health and life.

The value of the subsistence minimum is a cost estimate of the consumer basket, which includes a minimum set of food products, as well as expenses on non-food products and services, taxes and mandatory payments, corresponding in terms of the structure of expenses for these purposes to the budgets of low-income families. The value of the subsistence minimum is an indicator of the absolute measurement of low incomes using the standards of consumption of the most important goods and services at the minimum acceptable level.

A significant part of the Russian population has incomes below the subsistence level. The number of such population was especially significant at the first stage of reforms. It can be said that it was during this period that a situation arose when the population with incomes below the subsistence minimum was annually more than 30 million people, and in some years of this period more than 40 million people (1992 and 1999). During the same period, there were significant differences in the standard of living and in living wage by region.

The decline in living standards was evidenced not only by the high proportion of the population with incomes below the subsistence level, but also by the fact that minimum size wages and the rate of the 1st category of the wage scale in force in budgetary spheres That is, it is still significantly below the subsistence level. This means that not only disabled people (disabled, orphans), unemployed, but also those working in low-paid jobs had a low standard of living.

At the new stage of transformations, certain prerequisites have been created to eliminate the deformation of the first stage, which ultimately found expression in a significant reduction in the number and proportion of the population living below the subsistence level. In 2009, this share decreased to 17.8%.

Another indicator of measuring the level and quality of life is the index human development or the human development index (HDI), which is calculated on the basis of three parameters - the average life expectancy (baseline longevity), the baseline education indicator (the proportion of literate people aged 15 years and over, as well as the indicator of educational enrollment) and gross domestic product per capita. The most objective situation here is given by the GDP per capita indicator, calculated taking into account purchasing power parity national currencies... Despite the inaccuracy of such estimates, it allows us to show the situation in principle: we lag behind most developed countries by 2.5-3.5 times [Appendix B]. Therefore, one cannot expect that a significant part of Russian families can live by the standards of the European "middle class".

The impact of unemployment on poverty is greatest when the head of household is deprived of a job, especially if this is the only source family income... Loss of employment threatens something more than loss of income - falling out of the network of familiar communities. In a market economy, "full employment" is constantly accompanied by unemployment, when part of the working population is temporarily or permanently unemployed. It is almost impossible to ensure that the entire working-age population is employed.

Excessive unemployment has high economic and social costs. Unemployment leads to inactivity of a certain part able-bodied population as a result - to the loss of qualifications, the decline of moral foundations, the breakdown of the family, to social and political unrest. And the modern market economy needs highly qualified workers who are able to creatively approach the performance of their functions, make extraordinary decisions, take responsibility for them, search for new constructive ideas.

The threat of becoming unemployed and poor changes the reproductive attitudes of the population. A significant part of young families and families of childbearing age, where both parents work, postpone the birth of children until better times, knowing full well that the appearance of a child automatically means that this family falls into the category of poor, and for a woman-mother, in addition, the likelihood of being , ultimately, among the unemployed.

Poverty arises from factors such as the general level of production and productivity, from the structure of the labor market and is associated with labor processes. Inequality in access to labor markets must be understood as part of a process of social and economic stratification, one of the outcomes of which is poverty. Differentiation and inequality in the labor market primarily determine the differentiation in the standard of living - in themselves important determinants of the overall level of poverty. In a broad sense, poverty reflects the prevalence of low-paid jobs and processes in the labor market, unstable, often bordering on unemployment, employment that pushes people into unemployment and economic inactivity.

The indicators reflecting the depth and severity of the problem of poverty in society include the poverty index, the poverty deficit index, and the quadratic poverty deficit index. They are interpreted as follows.

The poverty deficit index expresses the poverty deficit as a percentage of the poverty line in relation to the total population, and in this sense is a characteristic of the entire population. The quadratic poverty deficit index is more sensitive to the well-being of the poorest part of the population, although it, like the poverty deficit index, is a characteristic of the entire population.

The Sen's index is also used: an indicator that simultaneously takes into account the prevalence of poverty, the magnitude of the deficit Money and the level of stratification of the poor.

The average income deficit of the poor is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the ratio of the income of the poor to the poverty line and can be interpreted as the average deviation of income from the poverty line, expressed as a percentage. The formula for calculating the Sen index has an interval of values ​​from 0 (no household or individual was included in the poor group) to 1 (the extreme case of poverty and inequality, when all households or individuals fell into the poor group, and the income of the group is concentrated in one household or one individual).

2.3 Priority directions for solving the problem of inequality and poverty in the domestic economy and the possibility of using foreign experience

The main direction of reducing the incidence of poverty in Russia should be considered the preparation and implementation of a set of measures for the transition from a social security policy to a policy of involving socially unprotected categories of the population in the labor market in labor.

Therefore, the solution of all complex issues of employment, wages, overcoming or reducing poverty of the working-age population can go in two directions:

1. Development and improvement of the labor market, including issues of employment, labor motivation, improvement of the wage system, growth of its productivity and legalization of shadow income.

In modern conditions, one of the main goals in the field of employment in Russia, as it follows from government documents, is to promote productive employment of the population, ensure the protection of the labor rights of citizens, and develop a flexible labor market. Within the framework of the indicated direction, it is necessary not only to improve labor legislation, but also to ensure high territorial mobility of labor resources. In the Russian Federation, there are a number of administrative obstacles to the development of labor migration, which restrain the flow of labor from regions with a surplus to labor-deficient regions. For the growth of labor mobility, it is important to “create an economic environment conducive to the free movement of labor; creation of an effective mechanism for informing the population about employment opportunities in various regions of the country; removal of administrative restrictions on the movement of labor within the country ”; funding from federal budget job creation programs in depressed old cities industrial regions as regional budget funds it is not enough for that. It should be borne in mind that a significant increase in wages in the public sector of the economy and an increase in labor productivity will contribute to changes in the structure of employment. At the same time, public sector employees have limited opportunities to move to the extra-budgetary sector, which prevents the flow of labor resources.

The formation of a highly efficient labor market should also provide for the creation of an institutional environment conducive to the growth of self-employment of the population, an increase in the standard of living on the basis of the self-realization of each citizen, the creation of conditions for the population wishing to independently solve their problems with housing, education, health care; development and transfer to the regions of educational technologies for adapting the population to new market conditions(retraining of personnel, starting a business); providing loans to start your own economic activity, as well as for the organization of municipal enterprises based, in particular, on home work. This would allow members of society to choose the forms of their labor activity and to bear responsibility for the achieved level of their well-being. This measure should receive priority development, since the state should gradually abandon paternalism in the field of social protection, while retaining the functions of protecting the most vulnerable segments of the population.

The formation of a competitive position of women in the labor market is possible, in our opinion, under the following conditions:

Industrial policy should be aimed not only at the development of extractive industries, focused mainly on male labor, but also those industries in which women's labor is concentrated (light, food, etc.);

Development of a program for the development of crafts and traditional crafts (for example, conducting master classes in cities and regions to teach unemployed women various types of folk crafts);

Creation of conditions for the realization of the professional potential of women: ensuring the availability of childcare facilities for caring for children outside the home or at home, but with the use of a special service; the development of the service sector, which, on the one hand, creates jobs for women, and on the other, allows working single mothers to combine industrial and domestic employment; introduction of measures specifically targeted at socially weak categories of women mothers (single, large, with disabled children, etc.) measures for vocational training by the employment service and encouragement of employers when hiring them.

Thus, the solution of issues of employment of workers requires coordination of efforts and interaction of bodies of the employment service of the population, executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, associations of employers.

Russia's reaching the standards of well-being of developed countries also provides for the achievement of the level of developed countries in terms of labor productivity. The latter should be determined not so much by the "capital-labor ratio" of the period industrial development how much by the level of education and creativity of the person himself, i.e. increasing the competitiveness of the workforce. This can only take place if the universal accessibility of education and health care services corresponding to the level of the most developed countries is ensured, contributing to an increase in the population's income and high living standards.

Improving the quality of labor resources can be significantly influenced by the creation of conditions for attracting qualified legal labor immigrants, and the opening of the economy to foreign trade and investment, which will help reduce the gender gap that exists in all countries - the gap in wages of men and women, which is not can be attributed to differences in education or work experience. Globalization and related reforms increase competition in product markets. This additional competitive pressure can reduce the scale of wage fixing for employers and reduce discrimination against women. And although openness to the market may well lead to an increase in the qualification premium and an increase in the spread of wages in the short term, these effects will disappear over time and, moreover, can be reduced in other ways.

The modern labor market is designed to expand the competitive potential of the Russian economy by increasing its comparative advantages in science, education and high technologies. To this end, he must identify the true price of labor, stimulate investment in human capital, lead to the efficient use and placement of labor (by industry, territory, enterprise). The transition of the Russian economy from exporting raw materials to an innovative way of development will help to translate these tasks of the labor market into reality, which means the transformation of intelligence, human creativity into a leading factor in economic growth and national competitiveness. The source of high income is not only the possibility of obtaining rent from the use of natural resources and a favorable global environment, but, above all, the production of new ideas, technologies and social innovations.

The implementation of the above measures should lead, in the near future, to the restoration of the role of income from labor activity as the main source of monetary income of the population, the most important incentive to increase the labor activity of the employee, to an increase in the dependence of pensions on the employee's past labor contribution, to an increase in pensions, taking into account the development of voluntary funded retirement savings to a level that ensures a decent standard of living for pensioners. As a result, poverty among the economically active population will decrease, and in the foreseeable future it will also be overcome, and the middle class of Russian society will become its dominant force.

However, it should be noted that the solution of these problems cannot be associated only with high rates of economic growth. The redistribution of income in favor of low-paid categories of workers and the legalization of informal earnings can also take place in conditions of economic stagnation. It is important to note that reducing inequality and reducing shadow labor market relations can themselves stimulate economic growth.

State support for those able-bodied people who are not able to independently get out of the plight. Special measures should be taken in cases of mass unemployment caused by bankruptcies of enterprises, as well as caused by man-made and natural disasters. It is necessary to create conditions for the modernization of the vocational education system, for attracting able-bodied invalids and other categories of people with disabilities to work.

In this area, in our opinion, the role of social events, which serve to increase the economic activity of the population, more efficient use of its labor potential, adaptation to the market environment, harmonization of linking personal interests in the world of work with the interests of the country's development. In this case, we can talk about expanding the prerequisites for labor activity for persons with disabilities and creating incentives for enterprises to create jobs for them; on the vocational guidance of young people and the versatility of educational programs, training and retraining of citizens in integrated professions (specialties); on social protection of youth from unemployment and the provision of additional opportunities early in their careers.

In a period of unfavorable economic conditions, continuing education for young people will become a kind of buffer against unemployment. To reduce youth unemployment, it is advisable to limit the entry of young people (schoolchildren and students) graduating from their studies into the labor market during the period of the low point of the economic downturn by introducing a policy to extend the period of study in educational institutions for those who graduate from them, but for certain reasons cannot continue their education. further or find a job. Within the framework of continuing education, it is possible to organize targeted (according to the demand for certain specialties) vocational training.

The listed social measures to support the able-bodied poor presuppose an increase in the participation of regional bodies in the formation of the educational space; creation on the basis of territorial centers of employment of the population, institutions of primary vocational education, secondary specialized and higher educational institutions of territorial educational complexes for advanced training; training, jointly with business centers, of unemployed citizens and the unemployed population in the basics of entrepreneurial activity, as well as the creation of “guaranteed” jobs in the public sector, which can be considered as a form of insurance against the external risk faced by the economic system.

Today, the change of technologies, the emergence of new professions and specialties are accelerating, the acquired professional knowledge and skills are enough for a maximum of five years. Therefore, in modern conditions, it is extremely important to carry out long-term forecasting and programming of the training of specialists in higher and secondary vocational educational institutions, the introduction of the practice of their distribution by orders of state and other organizations. The consequence will be the social well-being of the population of Russia, determined by the results of transformations in the field of education. As the analysis of the structure of the poor has shown, the latter, for the most part, receive education below secondary (complete) general. Despite education in educational institutions and specialties with lower tuition fees, the burden of tuition costs for poor families is significantly higher than for non-poor families.

As a consequence of the inequality in the real availability of education, limited budgetary resources in the field of vocational education are not distributed in favor of the needy segments of the population. Violation of the principle of equal access to education against the background of excessive differentiation of the population's income leads to increased poverty, social-caste division of society, and an increase in social contradictions.

At the stage of forming an innovative model of sustainable development, it is necessary to declare higher education one of the key priorities of the state. Education should be affordable, meet high world standards, provide the need real sector economy in the necessary personnel. At the same time, in the field of education, new, qualitatively more complex tasks must be solved, such as increasing the efficiency of the use of funds, rationalizing the combination of budgetary and non-budgetary sources of funding; creating an atmosphere not only of universal accessibility, but also of the general demand for lifelong education, implying the formation of an appropriate infrastructure through the optimal use of the resources available in the country. Therefore, it is necessary to modernize the educational system, bring it into line with the modern requirements of the labor market, ensure the availability of quality education for the poor.

In order for the state to perform the function of a guarantor against social risks, it is imperative to improve and develop the legal framework for social protection, to identify possible types of social risk and ways to protect against them, to create an effective system for accumulating and spending funds for protection. It seems that there is a need to increase the choice of risks to be compulsory insurance, for which it is necessary to transform social support into social insurance with the differentiation of risks and the dependence of the size of insurance payments on insurance premiums. In particular, to overcome structural unemployment, create long-term programs to help people who have lost their jobs, it is possible to use unemployment insurance. An alternative to insurance can be compulsory contribution programs, which, for example, are part of the old-age pension system, when the amount of the pension depends on the previously made contributions. Workers can add unspent funds to their retirement account so that they can then use it in the event of a job loss.

Wherein insurance funds carrying out insurance can be both state and non-state, and state supervision for insurance activities and the provision of guarantees of social protection of policyholders are a necessary area of ​​activity of the state. In turn, the creation of effective mechanisms for increasing the competitiveness of insurance organizations provides an opportunity for the insured to choose the most attractive insurance company, select the insurance service he needs for favorable terms and leads to efficient spending of insurance funds.

But governmental support the able-bodied part of the population (social assistance) should not be massive, as is the case in our country now, when up to 70% of workers receive certain state social benefits, which thereby play the function of an anti-incentive to effective labor activity. The country needs a systemic reform of the labor market and social and labor relations, which has not yet been carried out. Individual measures in this area do not give positive results. In the economy, the development of globalization processes and the toughening of competition in the world market give particular urgency to the tasks of forming an active working society; providing support to enterprises, organizations and the workforce in adapting to global socio-economic processes and the environment, to the changing requirements of the labor market.

Reducing poverty of the working-age population as a whole is impossible without overcoming inter-territorial differences in the development of labor resources, the labor market and the level of employment of the population. This problem can be solved, in our opinion, by creating a new model of spatial development of Russia based on the formation of new territorial centers in order to reduce the scale of regional inequality. In this case, the territorial bodies of state and municipal authorities should have an information and analytical base that will help them identify regional "points of growth" and the potential of the population.

At the federal level, it is necessary to optimize the mechanisms for the redistribution of funds through the fund for financial support of regions and other territorial funds, to strengthen control over the spending of funds, especially in the most subsidized regions.

At the regional level, the tasks solved within the framework of promoting the adaptation of the population and modernizing the way of life should be aimed at promoting the development of small and medium-sized businesses to create new jobs; minimization regional taxes for small business; to maintain service functions and support industries in local centers; for additional payments to those employed in budget sectors in more prosperous constituent entities of the Russian Federation from the regional budget; to promote economic restructuring and inter-settlement mobility in depressed cities of old industrial regions; on the introduction of methods for assessing the standard of living, taking into account regional specifics; for a more complete account of the conditions of the working environment in wages.

At the municipal level, it is necessary to provide assistance to any forms of earning labor income and create conditions for the self-organization of the rural population, including the implementation of: stimulating the creation of small production forms in the countryside (cooperatives, personal subsidiary plots), the allocation of land plots all comers; investment in the infrastructure of trade in products of private household plots; attracting investors to agribusiness and agricultural processing, which is especially important for the labor market in local centers and rural areas; organization of centralized purchases of agricultural products from small production units; creation of a developed consumer cooperation market in the countryside, stimulating the labor and entrepreneurial activity of rural residents in terms of implementing programs for the social and economic development of the countryside, reducing unemployment by expanding trade, procurement and production activities. The solution of these issues involves the provision of economic, legal and consulting services on land use and development of private entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector, and increasing the knowledge and skills of specialists in the agricultural sector.

It is also appropriate to stimulate the work of local self-government bodies of municipalities, which effectively solve the problems of overcoming poverty, increasing incomes of residents, involving the poor in business and other labor activities.

Since measures to create conditions for an independent way out of poverty for the working-age population in the modern Russian labor market also involve the attraction of enterprises, we note the priority areas for systematizing and imparting dynamism to the process of forming institutions of socially responsible employers in the regions:

1) Formation of socially responsible behavior of businessmen in the labor market (this implies the promotion and popularization of the principles social responsibility). One of the main conditions for the creation of an "ethical economy" is seen in the formation of a new type of economic thinking and, as a consequence, responsible behavioral reactions of business in the labor market. Modern business must think large-scale and forward-looking, understand that social responsibility to society is not only obligatory, but also profitable. In particular, it is beneficial to invest in human capital because educated and healthy workers will work more efficiently in the future. This is evidenced by both foreign and domestic experience. American specialists in the field of management K. Klock and J. Goldsmith consider the theses: “human capital is the main resource of development”, “above all the intelligence of the personnel”.

2) Establishment of mutual responsibility and interaction between society, the state and business structures, employers, managers and employees (i.e. all participants in the social partnership). This presupposes the development of technologies, criteria, motivations, incentives that contribute to the achievement of the main goal - the formation of socially responsible business, “serving as a condition for the complementarity of institutions and factors of institutional equilibrium in the sphere of social policy. Interaction between the state and business should be carried out on a long-term and mutually beneficial basis.

The role of the state is to create equal favorable conditions for the effective development of business in various forms and to improve the quality of life of the population on the part of both business and the population itself. Along with these, businesses should assist the state in solving the problems of socio-economic development of the country as a whole and in improving the quality of life of the population in particular, including in creating new jobs, financing social programs, development programs for priority sectors and spheres of the economy, etc. etc. " ...

3) Institutionalization of the concept of social responsibility of business, providing for the adoption of new laws that determine the norms of public-private partnership; development of codes of corporate responsibility, implementation of criteria for social responsibility of business.

We believe that a socially oriented policy of overcoming poverty should "punish" private owners of enterprises who neglect the physical and mental health of labor collectives, thus stimulating enterprises to improve working conditions; to encourage conscientious employers and workers, which requires the development of a system of economic and social indicators that determine the degree of economic and social conscientiousness of employers in relation to employees, the conscientiousness of employees in relation to the results of their work, the introduction of incentive mechanisms based on a system of indicators.

The listed measures for the official growth of the population's monetary income and support of the poor population in combination with active employment programs should fit into a new strategy associated with strengthening the role of the state in socio-economic development. However, this can only work if it becomes effective by getting rid of corruption. This applies equally to the development of the institution of social partnership, the transformation of entrepreneurship into a socially responsible institution, and trade unions into an effective institution for the protection of social and labor rights.

The organization of highly paid and efficient jobs, where workers can protect themselves and their families from poverty, should become the general line of overcoming poverty in society. This vector of development of society can lead to overcoming the socio-economic phenomenon of poverty on the basis of an increase in the well-being of the bulk of the population through effective economic growth with a socially fair distribution of income.

Conclusion

The problem of poverty is one of the most acute social problems in modern Russia. It is poverty that determines the limited access of a significant part of the population of our country to development resources: high-paying jobs, high-quality education and health services, the possibility of successful socialization of children and youth. The low level of income of a significant part of families, combined with an excessive polarization of income, leads to a social rift in society, causes social tension, and prevents successful development countries determine the crisis processes in the family and society.

According to article 7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation “ Russian Federation is a social state, the policy of which is aimed at creating conditions that ensure a dignified life and free human development ”. The welfare state is obliged to pursue an active state social policy aimed at ensuring its citizens the most important social rights, which undoubtedly include the right to work and its decent wages, to housing, education, health care, social security, etc. to a certain level of well-being. In this regard, the development and implementation of state policy for the prevention and reduction of poverty in modern Russia is acquiring the most important theoretical and practical significance.

Today Russia, possessing a powerful human capital, rich natural resources, great successes in the scientific and technical sphere, has lost all its social achievements and found itself socially and economically thrown back almost to the level of developing countries.

The situation needs to be changed. Need to develop long-term strategy modernization of society, determine long-term goals and comprehensive measures to achieve them. Naturally, it will be possible to cope with the solution of this problem only if the efforts of people in the leadership of the country and regions, in the leadership of companies, representatives of culture, science, education, and religious confessions are united. We must try to hear as many voices as possible. We must all help each other together. The future of our country depends on our joint efforts and on the efforts of those new leaders, those new engineers and scientists, those new successful people, for whose appearance it is now necessary to concentrate on forming the foundations of a society of equal opportunities.

Even 10 years ago, the contradiction between the poor and the rich in terms of acuity of perception was quite comparable to the contradictions between officials and the ordinary population, between the oligarchs and the overwhelming majority of the people. Nowadays it not only came to the fore, but also began to intensify, "superimposing" on the extremely acutely perceived problem of social inequality and flagrant social injustice in modern Russia.

In any other developed society, such an attitude of the poor would most likely result in a radicalization of their consciousness and behavior. However, with all the current dissatisfaction, there are no signs that the Russian poor are distinguished by a radical, let alone revolutionary spirit. Moreover, despite the rather negative assessments by the poor of certain aspects of society, two-thirds of their representatives express support for the current government and are not disposed to any active protest forms of mass action.

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Appendix A

Table 1- The structure of monetary incomes of the population of Russia,%

Appendix B

Distribution of the total volume of monetary incomes of the population in Russia by income groups,%

Mass poverty of the population and excessive polarization of society have a negative impact on economic development Russia, contradict the creation of the institutions of the welfare state. Increasing inequality and poverty impede development domestic market Russia, the formation of a middle class, i.e. the solvent majority of the population. Healthy and sustainable economic growth cannot rely solely on a rich and super-rich population in conditions of mass poverty.

It is poverty that determines the limited access of a significant part of the population of our country to development resources: high-paying jobs, high-quality education and health services, the possibility of successful socialization of children and youth.

The low level of income of a significant part of families, combined with an excessive polarization of income, cause a social rift in society, cause social tension, hinder the successful development of the country, determine the demographic crisis and crisis processes in the family and society.

Poverty is a consequence of many interrelated factors, including:

· Economic (low wages and its high differentiation, unemployment);

· Social (disability, old age, marginalization, child neglect);

· Demographic (single-parent families, families with a high load of dependents, young people and the older generation with weak positions in the labor market);

· Political (rupture of the existing interregional ties, military conflicts, forced migration);

· Regional and geographical (depressed mono-industrial regions, subsidized regions with low economic potential, northern regions dependent on centralized supplies of food and resources).

There are three important economic factors influencing poverty: 1) a decrease in the average level of monetary income of the population; 2) low level of minimum social guarantees; 3) increased inequality in the distribution of income www.librero.ru/ Dubrovskaya T. A., Makarov V. E., Lebedev A. V. Poverty in Russia and the world: socio-political and solutions ..

The main factor determining the high level of poverty in Russia is the low level of wages, which does not ensure the implementation of the reproductive and stimulating functions of remuneration. Today, even the average wage does not provide normal conditions for the reproduction of workers and their family members and rather plays the role of a social benefit. Low wages of the majority of employees are combined with economically and socially unjustified differentiation in the pay of top managers. The difference between the minimum and maximum wages is 10-15 times at the enterprise, 20-40 times within the industry, and 20-45 times between regions.

At the present stage of Russia's development, in addition to traditional social poverty (large families, single-parent families with children, etc.), there is also economic poverty, when able-bodied citizens cannot ensure themselves a socially acceptable level of well-being.

The regional aspect of income and poverty is due to a number of reasons and factors, including the different economic potential of the regions, the predominance of unprofitable enterprises in the depressed sectors of the economy in the region, the low ability of the population to adapt to a new type of economic relations, unsatisfactory employment structure, inefficiency the current system social protection of the population.

Chronic pockets of poverty have also formed in a number of sectors of the non-budgetary sector of the economy, including in the textile industry, footwear, clothing, and woodworking. Higher poverty rates in rural areas. This situation is explained by the extremely low level of wages in agriculture.

It should be noted that workers in enterprises with a large share of gray wages can fall into the category of "working poor", although their real earnings your living wage.

Speaking about the problem of poverty in Russia, one must understand that at the heart of this phenomenon was and is the absence for a significant part of our fellow citizens of fair - or, more precisely, equal - access to the creation and distribution of benefits. The Russian Constitution declares the equality of citizens' rights regardless of property and official status, place of residence - but in practice this principle is not implemented. Throwing aside a historically unjustified political system, we have eliminated many achievements in the social sphere. Here we mean, though not always completely fair, but nevertheless the equality of opportunities that took place in the USSR in the field of education, health care, security, and culture. This and such aspects of the quality of life as an acceptable state environment, the possibility of changing their place of residence, the availability of housing, etc., which seem to be guaranteed to our citizens, in practice are available to very few.

This means that it is not necessary to fight poverty in general, but to solve the specific task of creating conditions that provide people with equal opportunities. The main guideline for solving this problem should be the social modernization of our society. This is the way to improve the quality of human capital.

Usually, the standard of living of the population, the quality of life are assessed by cash income for one person. This approach is valid if, firstly, the income level of the bulk of the population is high enough, and, secondly, the country has well-developed market relations in all areas of life. Neither the first nor the second applies to Russia. Therefore, speaking about the quality of life in relation to our situation, it is necessary to talk specifically about the benefits that an ordinary person receives and the deprivations that he experiences. That is, we need to talk about the availability and quality of housing, education, health care, recreation, security, civil liberties, etc.

Returning to the analysis of the problem of poverty, it is necessary to find out where its roots are. To do this, it is important to understand who falls into the category of the poor, where are the pain points of social relations that give rise to social inequality, primarily inequality of opportunities.

Paradoxically, in Russia the working poor - and these are mainly highly qualified personnel, such as teachers, doctors and a number of other categories of public sector workers - make up almost half of all the poor. There is no such glaring situation in any civilized country in the world. What future can there be for a country where teachers are begging?

Or another fact. In our country, over 40% of young families after the birth of a child fall into the category of the poor. This means that almost every second young family gives birth to a child who becomes poor by birth Deripaska O. Overcoming inequality is the path to long-term stability / Nezavisimaya gazeta. - 19.02.2004. - with. 22 ..

Traditionally vulnerable groups of the population in the labor market and, therefore, in relation to poverty are: single parents, mainly single mothers who do not receive any (or necessary) material support from their children's fathers and who do not work or work part-time; youth unable to find work after graduation educational institution; the unemployed who either do not receive any benefits at all, or receive benefits from the relevant social protection systems that are inadequate to the established poverty line (those who have been unemployed for a long time are in a particularly disadvantaged position); older workers; women; disabled people; former criminals; migrants.

Factors associated with an increased risk of becoming poor or requiring social assistance are low levels of education, inadequate work experience, marital status, race or ethnicity. At the same time, higher levels of education and qualifications and a higher socio-economic status protect against poverty, and in the case of entering the state of poverty for some reason, they are strong prerequisites for getting out of this state. According to existing estimates, the lack of, for example, access to secondary education is strongly correlated with poverty. The labor market responds to higher levels of skills by reducing the poverty level of those who hold them.

What specific conditions give rise to poverty in our country? High unemployment, a significant number of jobs where wages are below the subsistence level, a decrease in the number of free public services, completely ineffective targeted support, almost absolute impossibility of changing the place of residence, etc. This is our reality. However, much of this could have been avoided if our fellow citizens had equal opportunities to solve their problems, primarily equal opportunities for individual development and growth.

The incomes of the wealthiest citizens are growing faster than the income of the poorest strata. The number of poor in absolute terms (the number of Russians with incomes below the subsistence minimum), calculated according to the Russian method, is getting smaller, but poverty itself is deepening.

Residents of small towns with low labor market opportunities, as well as citizens living in remote rural areas, are highly vulnerable to poverty.

Poverty reproduction is also facilitated by reduced access of the poor to social infrastructure, which undermines the principle of equal opportunities (inaccessibility of paid health care and education, non-attendance by children from poor families of educational institutions, child neglect, early drug addiction and alcoholism) Sharin V. Is it possible to stop the reproduction of poverty? // Man and Labor. - 2005. - No. 7. - S. 25 ..

The use of a single (in the form of a flat scale) tax rate on personal income in the amount of 13% slows down the elimination of poverty and the reduction of inequality in the Russian Federation. The motive for establishing such a procedure, according to the authorities, was determined by the fact that the low level of taxation makes it necessary to disclose shadow income and earnings. Meanwhile, the main are the mechanisms of tax administration Belyaeva LA Material inequality in Russia. Reality and tendencies / Sotsis. - 2007. - No. 9. - p. eighteen..

Studies show that after the establishment of new rules, the tax mass hardly increased, and the incomes of individuals remained in the shadow of N.M. Rimashevskaya. Some problems of social reform in Russia // Problems of forecasting. - 2006. - No. 2. - with. 6 .. A slight increase in revenues from the corresponding taxes is associated with the following circumstances: natural growth of wages and income; establishment tax payments with the allowance of military personnel; a slight disavowal of income, which then went into the shadows again.

Tax deductions for low-paid workers are negligible, while providing tax incentives focused primarily on highly paid workers (payment for the purchase and construction of housing, payment for medical and educational services). As a result, the tax burden is eased to a greater extent not for low-paid workers, but rather for high-paid workers. Decrease tax burden the extremely low - in comparison with most developed countries - rate of personal income tax on dividends (9%) also contributes to the high-income strata of the population. All this leads to the fact that the Russian system of taxation of personal income is not only not focused on reducing the differentiation of disposable income as compared with nominal, but also leads, probably, to the exact opposite result, increasing the level of income differentiation and poverty of the population.

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Material and property characteristics and quality of life of rich and poor. The spread of poverty and wealth in Russia, the hallmarks of poverty and poverty, wealth. Features and characteristics of their consumer preferences.

INTRODUCTION 2

CONCEPT OF POVERTY 4

THE ESSENCE OF POVERTY 8

POVERTY MEASUREMENT 12

CAUSES OF POVERTY 14

IMPACT OF POVERTY 17

METHODS FOR ANTI-POVERTY 19

CONCLUSION 20

REFERENCES 23

INTRODUCTION

Currently, a global social danger is the threat of impoverishment of the population. Unemployment, economic and social instability, unrealizable hopes, collapse of plans intensify the process of population marginalization. The state of poverty does not allow society to realize its potential capabilities, and, consequently, to develop. That is why it is associated with regression in social development.

Poverty has always been an urgent problem, but in modern Russia this issue is especially acute. Currently, a significant part of the population is below the poverty line or close to the border of the “social bottom”. This is especially noticeable against the background of strong stratification, when the difference in incomes between the poor and the rich is tens, hundreds and thousands of times. And this process is dynamic, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer.

A social problem is an objective contradiction, leading to a violation of the proportions of social functioning and development and, on this basis, to an imbalance of interests of various social groups, to the destruction of dominant social values, as a result of which the essential properties of society change and a "threat" to its habitual, established (and in this sense of normal) life.

The problem of poverty arises as a result of a violation of the proportions of social reproduction: proportions of activity (the ratio of socially heterogeneous types of labor, the ratio of the employed and unemployed population in social production); proportions of the state (differentiation of the population according to the level of provision with material, spiritual and social benefits, the relationship between the elements of well-being and the phases of its reproduction); proportions of relations: man - society - nature, man - social group - class - society. They are based on the key proportion between the productive and consuming power of society, the expression of which is the ratio of labor and free time.

The problem of poverty is associated with social forms of alienation of a person from a person (from society), from the prerequisites and results of labor, from labor itself, with a significant restriction of the consumption of basic living goods, with the formation of conditions under which the subculture of the poor turns into a factor of destabilization of the life of society ...

The relevance of this issue lies in the fact that social polarization, stratification of our society into rich and poor is the main of its characteristics at the moment and in our time.

THE CONCEPT OF POVERTY

POVERTY is an extreme insufficiency of property values, goods, funds available to a person, family, region, state for a normal life and life. The threshold, the poverty line, is the normatively established level of monetary income of a person, a family for a certain period, which provides a physical subsistence minimum.

Poverty is the inability to maintain a certain acceptable standard of living.

Poverty is a condition in which a person's immediate needs exceed his ability to meet them.

Poverty is considered one of the most pressing social problems in modern society.

As a state of hungry life, poverty has existed from time immemorial, but it was considered a completely common phenomenon inherent in the overwhelming majority of the population. In Asian, ancient and feudal societies, the division into rich and poor depended little on a person's personal abilities: the level of needs and the ability to satisfy them depended on the estate-legal status of the individual. Different social groups had different lifestyles, so the impossibility for the lower estates to follow the prestigious lifestyle of the upper strata was perceived as a habitual norm of life.

By poverty in the broad sense of the word, we mean such a state in which there is a discrepancy between the achieved average level of satisfaction of needs and the possibilities of meeting them in individual social groups, strata of the population. This leads to low material security of certain groups of people, to a change in their value system, to the formation of a special social peace and their culture (subculture of poverty), a life style that is discordant with the generally accepted one, which was established in society, which threatens the normal functioning of the latter.

Disagreements over the definition of poverty affect not only its essence, but also the causes, consequences and ways of solving this problem. In his report on poverty in Britain, conducted in the 1960s and 70s, P. Townsend gave the following definition of poverty: the same activities as the majority of the population, to have housing and indulge in the pleasures of life available to most people. In other words, if they cannot live in the society to which they belong, the way the majority of the population lives. "

You can also highlight the definition given in 1963 by the famous economist G. Myrdal. He defined the lower class as "a disadvantaged class consisting of unemployed, disabled and part-time workers who are more or less hopelessly separated from society as a whole, do not participate in its life and do not share its aspirations and successes." ... We can include in the emerging lower class not only the most disadvantaged sections of society, but also all citizens below the poverty line, as well as those who today receive incomes not exceeding half the income of the average industrial worker working full-time.

Thus, the definition of poverty can be approached from different positions and points of view.

The definition of poverty as a condition in which a person's urgent needs exceed his ability to meet them is general in nature, because it does not specify what urgent needs are. What are needs, what is their significance for human life?

A need is a need, a need for something that requires satisfaction. This is a certain form of communication between living organisms and the outside world, necessary for the existence and development of the individual, human personality, social group, society as a whole. Depending on the tasks of studying the needs in modern science, various classifications are used. Existing standards reflect modern scientific ideas about human needs for goods and services - personal needs. Personal needs reflect the objective need for a certain set and amount of material goods and services and social conditions that ensure the all-round activity of a particular person.

Personal needs are divided into physiological (physical), social and intellectual (spiritual).

Physiological needs are decisive - of the first order, since they express the needs of a person as a biological being. These are the needs of people in everything that is necessary for their existence, development and reproduction. They include the needs for food, clothing, footwear, housing, rest, sleep, physical activity.

Social needs. They are associated with the fact that a person belongs to society, occupies a certain place in it. Social needs include the needs for work, creativity, creativity, social activity, communication with other people, that is, in everything that is a product of social life.

Intellectual needs relate to education, advanced training, creative activity generated by the internal state of a person.

Human social qualities also give rise to spiritual needs. If physical (material) needs have reasonable boundaries, then the satisfaction of a person's spiritual needs opens up space for the development of personality, elevates a person, makes his life interesting and meaningful. This is where the needs for knowledge, creative activity, and the creation of beauty are manifested.

Intellectual and social needs refer to non-essential needs and are satisfied after a certain degree of satisfaction of primary needs comes. They do not have a direct assessment, although they largely depend on the state of culture in society, the general level and quality of life of the population.

Failure to meet the need can lead either to a change in the normal life of a person, or to his death.

Depending on what needs a person is able to satisfy, two types of poverty are distinguished, while proceeding from two basic concepts: absolute and relative.

THE ESSENCE OF POVERTY

In world science and practice, there are three main approaches to defining poverty: absolute poverty (poor in income and expenditure), relative poverty (deprivation, deprivation) and subjective poverty (based on the self-assessment of the respondents).

Absolute poverty is associated with the need for vital resources that provide a person with biological survival.

It is about meeting the most basic needs - food, shelter, clothing. The criteria for this type of poverty depend little on the time and place of residence of a person. The specific set of products consumed at the dawn of the development of human society and modern man differs significantly, but one can always unambiguously judge whether a person is starving or full. Thus, the criteria for absolute poverty are linked to biological characteristics.

Relative poverty is determined by comparison with the generally accepted standard of living that is considered “normal” in a given society.

This concept is more subjective, since it requires someone to assess the level of poverty, and who should make the assessment is a controversial issue. The relative definition of poverty is based on a comparison of the living standards of the poor and the living standards of the strata of the population that are not poor. As a rule, the average standard of living is used.

Subjective poverty - based on the assessments of their own situation by the people themselves; feeling that they do not have enough to live, determining the level of poverty for themselves.

The average standard of living in the developed countries of the West is obviously higher than in the developing countries. Therefore, what will be considered poverty in the countries of the developed West is regarded as a luxury for backward states. So, for example, those people who do not experience difficulties with nutrition, but cannot afford to meet the needs of a higher level (education, cultural recreation, etc.) also fall into the category of relatively poor in the West. Thus, the criteria for relative poverty are based on social characteristics and vary greatly in different eras and in different countries.

In today's Russia, there are three distinct levels of absolute poverty:

1.poverty, deepest acute poverty; In a situation of absolute poverty, the deepest poverty are people who do not have a physiological minimum means of livelihood. These are those who are on the verge of permanent malnutrition, if not hunger, or beyond that. In today's Russian situation, a conditional indicator of such a boundary can be considered the cost of the simplest set of food products included in the official subsistence minimum.

2. need, average poverty; covers those groups of the population who have enough funds for the simplest physiological needs, but who cannot satisfy social needs, even the most elementary ones. In these groups, there is usually no regular malnutrition, but clothes and shoes are not renewed, there is no funds for treatment, rest, etc. In today's situation, the upper limit of need is formed by the official subsistence minimum calculated by the Ministry of Labor and is actually an indicator of the social minimum ( in contrast to the cost of only one food set, which indicates the approximate limits of a purely physiological minimum). Thus, people whose incomes are less than the official subsistence minimum, but more than half or two-thirds of it, find themselves in a state of need.

3. insecurity, or underprovision, moderate poverty. Of course, quantitative boundaries, expressed in money, are rather arbitrary. Elementary needs are satisfied - both physiological and social, but more complex and higher needs remain unmet. Under such conditions, people eat more or less satisfyingly (although their diet is by no means balanced and their nutrition cannot be considered healthy), they somehow renew their clothes, get treatment, and rest. However, all this is done at a level and in forms that do not reach the standards that are considered normal and worthy within the framework of a given culture. In other words, a living wage is provided here, but there is no prosperity.

Finally, there is a division into “stable” poverty (poverty “inherited”) and “floating” (some poor individuals find the opportunity to reach a higher standard of living, but at the same time people with average incomes go broke and become poor).

The first is related to the fact that a low level of social security, as a rule, leads to deterioration in health, dequalification, deprofessionalization, and ultimately to degradation. Poor parents reproduce potentially poor children, which is determined by their health, education, and qualifications. Social studies of poverty stability have shown that people who are “born permanently poor” remain so throughout their lives.

The second form, much less common, is associated with the fact that the poor sometimes take incredible efforts and "jump out" of their social, virtually vicious circle, adapting to new conditions, defending their right to better life... Of course, not only subjective, personal factors, but also the objective conditions created by the state and society play an essential role in such a "jump".

For all the importance of identifying the absolute and relative varieties of poverty, they are not enough to convey the originality of its structure in modern Russia. With regard to the practical needs of social policy, another distinction is decisive: the poverty of the “weak” and the poverty of the “strong”.

Poverty of the "weak"- this is the poverty of disabled people, disabled people, sick, physically and psychologically unstable, as well as workers who are forced to bear an unreasonably heavy load (breadwinners large families etc.). It can be called social poverty, directly conditioned by the socio-demographic properties of certain categories of the population. One or another manifestation of poverty of the “weak” is practically inevitable in modern societies. Social poverty, at least its relative form, is a constant feature of social life.

In contrast to the poverty of the "weak", poverty of the "strong" arises in extraordinary conditions, when full-fledged workers, usually able to receive income that gives a "normal" living standard, find themselves in a situation in which they cannot provide the standard of well-being accepted at a given time and in a given society by their labor. From this point of view, the poverty of the “strong” can be defined as industrial-labor or economic poverty, thereby emphasizing its direct dependence on the crisis situation in the economy, when an employee does not receive earnings of the usual scale.

MEASURING POVERTY

There are several methods for measuring poverty.

Cost of living concept.

The first to take up quantitative calculations of the level of poverty were the English scientists Charles Booth and Sibom Rowntree, who introduced the concept of "the threshold (or line) of poverty" in the 1890s. The poverty line is the minimum income required to purchase only essential food, clothing and housing. With the development of society, the set of objects and services necessary for life expanded, but the essence of the method remained the same - the classification of an individual or a family as poor depends on what they possessed. Using this method, it is possible to measure absolute poverty.

The concept of relative poverty (deprivation).

One of its first authors was the American scientist Peter Townsend. If the first concept was based on the concept of income, then the concept of relative poverty put the concept of well-being at the forefront. She took into account the satisfaction of not only physical but also social needs. After all, people are often provided with vital items and services, but they cannot lead the way of life adopted in their society. On the other hand, income is not a determining indicator in those countries where the government pursues policies aimed at improving the welfare of the poor through not only cash subsidies and benefits, but also a wide variety of in-kind benefits (free travel on public transport, affordable housing, free education, etc.) etc.). The emphasis on quality and living conditions allows us to determine the gap between the social position of an individual (or family) and his standard of living.

Accumulated deprivation concept.

This concept was first proposed in 1979 by the Norwegian sociologist E. Hansen. A significant drawback of the methodology of the concept of relative poverty is the arbitrariness of the chosen criteria. The absence of any criterion may not be so much an indicator of poverty as a conscious choice of the individual (for example, for a vegetarian, the absence of meat in the diet is not a consequence of the impossibility of acquiring it). A characteristic feature of the new approach is not only the study of the well-being of an individual (or family), but also the calculation of the number of problems he faces (material income, employment, social relations, education, etc.).

The concept of poverty as a self-concept.

All described approaches are based on the fact that the researcher chooses the poverty criteria, while the studied people are a passive object. In recent decades, the method of determining poverty based on the self-assessment of respondents has been increasingly used - whether they consider themselves poor or not. This approach has the advantage of allowing a better assessment of poverty as a social problem requiring special measures. However, its disadvantage is the subjectivity of the data due to the fact that many respondents may be ashamed to recognize themselves as poor.

Poverty rates measured against the criteria of each of these concepts will differ markedly. For example, the poverty rate calculated on the basis of the concept of accumulated poverty will be lower than that obtained on the basis of the concept of relative deprivation, but both of them will give more high percent poverty than in the case of measuring the cost of living.

CAUSES OF POVERTY

Of course, poverty is a controversial phenomenon, and in addition to assessing it, it is important to understand the causes that cause it.

Poverty is the result of several factors:

Demographic - age, family composition and size, gender - single-parent families, families with a high dependency burden, youth and older generation with weak positions in the labor market

Economic - unemployment, the general level of production and productivity, the structure of the labor market, inequality of the working-age population in the labor market, the level of income and consumption.

social - disability, old age, marginalization, child neglect

political - the rupture of the existing interregional ties, military conflicts, forced migration

There are two approaches to explaining the causes of the emergence and reproduction of poverty as a social phenomenon.

Cultural explanations.

One of the key concepts in this approach is the culture of poverty. Proponents of this approach argue that the poor are characterized by a special culture based on humility, inability to build their own future and fatalism. In the process of primary socialization, these values ​​are passed from one generation to another, leading to the “inheritance” of poverty.

Adherents of a cultural explanation of the phenomenon of poverty advocate the development of such qualities as perseverance, frugality and ambition in people. In their opinion, one of the options for solving the problem of poverty is the elimination of state aid or its significant modification (for example, the transition from gratuitous benefits to benefits that a person would have to work on public works).

Structural explanations.

Theories of this direction link the presence of poverty with the structural features of society based on social stratification, economic inequality, etc.

Proponents of the concept of poverty as a result of a special situation argue that there are periods in the life of people and society in general when the likelihood of poverty is very high. For example, this happens when there is a general economic recession in a society. Moreover, individual individuals are not responsible for the occurrence of such a situation. At the same time, poverty becomes the result of inequality of people in society and the unequal distribution of material wealth between individuals. To prevent this situation, it is necessary to create a social insurance system.

Another concept considers poverty as a consequence of the development of the international economy and changes in the structure of the world labor market. International corporations are looking for countries and regions with cheap labor, which leads to the fact that, in an effort to attract these investments, many countries artificially restrain the growth of wages, which leads to general impoverishment of the population.

Regardless of what the primary causes of poverty, once it has arisen, it begins to reproduce itself. The larger the percentage of a country's population is below or near the poverty line, the more likely that country is to fall into a “vicious circle of poverty”. After all, if a significant part of the population is poor, it cannot purchase goods, as a result, there is not enough production investment, which leads to the impossibility of developing the economy and raising the wages of workers. At the same time, it is more difficult for a country where a large part of the population lives in poverty to lift itself out of poverty.

If we can talk about the eradication of absolute poverty in a number of developed countries, then relative poverty will be a constant problem in any country for the foreseeable future.

CONSEQUENCES OF POVERTY

One group of scientists considered poverty as a factor in the struggle for existence, which spurs the development of society and individual individuals. This direction was called social-Darwinian, in the modern world this position is defended by liberals. Another group of scientists sees poverty as a social evil and call for its elimination through a more equal distribution of all benefits among people. This approach is called social-equalizing (or egalitarian), it is adhered to by supporters of socialist ideology.

Everyone recognizes that poverty has many negative consequences.

Poverty is a factor in social tension. Fighting what they see as unfair distribution of income, the poor are prone to committing crimes and violent methods of political struggle. History shows that during revolutions and other political upheavals, it was the poor who were the “combustible” material for social upheavals and sought to “plunder the loot”.

Even if the poor do not commit acts of violence against others, the society in which they live still suffers losses. A poor person cannot fully participate in the life of society, his creative potential is not revealed and is lost fruitlessly. Especially tragic is “inherited” poverty, when the children of the poor, with the same abilities, have much less chance of self-realization than their peers who were born in families with normal incomes.

While recognizing that poverty is harmful to society in many ways, liberals at the same time emphasize its positive consequences.

In their opinion, if there were no poverty, then the incentive of people to increase labor productivity would decrease. Poverty, therefore, forces people to actively participate in the competition for the goods of life.

Supporters of both positions - both socialists and liberals - agree on the predominantly negative consequences of absolute poverty, but disagree about relative poverty.

Social policy aimed at fighting poverty. There are two opposing approaches to the problem of fighting poverty.

The first approach is more common and is to recognize the need to provide assistance and benefits to the poor. Providing cash transfers, the easiest way to help the poor, does not solve the problem by itself. Other methods practiced by states of different countries are programs of further education or retraining. But they often do not change the situation, because, even after acquiring a new profession, a person often cannot find a job or cannot force himself to work effectively.

Regardless of the different interpretation of this concept, poverty has affected all segments of the population, taking on the broadest scale in the Russian Federation.

Poverty Alleviation Areas:

creation of conditions for self-sufficiency of a normal level of well-being of all families with able-bodied adults on a labor basis;

Formation of a system of effective support for vulnerable groups of the population (the elderly, the disabled, families with a high dependency burden, families in extreme situations) and guarantees of non-discriminatory access to free or subsidized resources;

the role of trade unions and the state in ensuring the labor rights of workers, especially disabled people, women and parents with young children, workers from single-parent families, youth should be increased;

In the area of ​​wages, the main factor in reducing poverty should be an increase in the minimum wage, a reduction in the number of low-paid workers;

Increase in employment of the population;

it is necessary to improve the system of targeted social assistance to socially vulnerable groups of the population: disabled people, pensioners, single parents, refugees, etc.

CONCLUSION

The poverty of a significant part of the population for a number of years continues to be one of the main social threats to the successful development of society. The economic reforms taking place in our country in recent years have seriously changed the social structure of society. There was a rapid social stratification, layers of very rich and extremely poor citizens appeared. The overwhelming majority of people were deprived of the social protection of the state, and were faced with the need to adapt to life in conditions of market instability. In these conditions, the emergence of a large number of poor people turned out to be inevitable.

Failure to meet the minimum needs of a person (family) is considered poverty. Failure to meet the need can lead either to a change in the normal life of a person, or to his death.

The method of measuring poverty officially adopted in Russia is based on the concept of absolute poverty, when the minimum needs (needs) and the range of goods and services that satisfy these needs (the composition of the so-called minimum consumer basket) are determined.

“In October 1997, the Federal Law“ On the subsistence level in the Russian Federation ”was adopted. According to this law, a new concept for the development of a subsistence level was approved using the normative method for calculating the minimum consumer basket.

It enshrines the extremely important principle of the relationship between the size of the minimum wage (and, consequently, old-age pensions, scholarships, benefits and other social benefits) and the size of the subsistence minimum. The latter is the basis on which not only the minimum wage is established, but also all social payments (clause 1 of article 5). Adopted in 1999 - 2000 at the government level, a number of normative acts, including the Methodology for Calculating the Subsistence Minimum in the Russian Federation as a whole, approved by a resolution of the Ministry of Labor of Russia and the State Statistics Committee of Russia in April 2000, means the practical implementation of the Federal Law “On the Subsistence Minimum in the Russian Federation”.

A special problem for modern Russia is the rapid feminization of poverty, which leads to the fact that minor children live in poverty. The atmosphere of life in poverty can leave an imprint on the future life of children, contribute to further broadcast. One of the new risk groups is families with unemployed people. Unemployment in Russia is a fundamentally new phenomenon in the social and economic life of society, which arose in the early 90s. and this factor strongly influences the change in the poverty profile. Unemployment is represented by various categories of the population. The most vulnerable remain young people, women, people of retirement age, low-skilled workers. Along with poverty and misery (sometimes referred to as deep poverty), deprivation is highlighted. Typically they are children, people with disabilities, unemployed people, retirees, members of a different race or nation, and the chronically poor. Today, the threat of impoverishment hangs over the well-to-do social and professional strata of the population. The social bottom, which includes beggars, homeless people, street children, street prostitutes, is ready to absorb and is already absorbing peasants, low-skilled workers, engineers and technicians, teachers, creative intelligentsia, scientists. The process of mass pauperization depends little on the will of people. Society has an effective mechanism for sucking a person to the bottom. The main elements of this mechanism are economic reforms, the criminal world and the state that is unable to protect its citizens. Therefore, we can assume that poverty is not only a minimum income, but a special way of life, norms of behavior, stereotypes of perception and psychology, passed from generation to generation.

The current model of poverty in the country is, first of all, the result of a low level of income from employment and, as a consequence, through their taxation, a low level of social transfers. In this regard, the phenomenon of Russian poverty can be defined, first of all, in terms of the categories of “market poverty” - poverty associated with the place of the (economically active) population in the labor market.

In society, absolute poverty can be eliminated, but relative poverty will always remain. After all, inequality is a constant companion of complex societies. Thus, relative poverty persists even when the living standards of all sectors of society have improved.

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ABSTRACT on the topic: Unemployment how social problem Work performed by: student group ... employment stability. Hidden unemployment spreads poverty, psychological and moral suffering. ... by virtue of the law on benefits for poverty... The second group - straight or ...