Expert Nikolaev: Nominal wage growth hinders the acceleration of real incomes
The Russian economy should become a “high wage economy,” Vladimir Putin said in his speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Only with decent wages will qualified personnel work, high-quality products be produced, and a “truly sovereign” development of the country will become possible, the president is sure. Experts assess the implementation of the task as a matter of the distant future.
According to the head of state, the future of any economy, including the Russian one, lies in high technologies and high-quality work. To achieve them, low-skilled labor is not good. Highly professional personnel are needed, whose work must be paid at a high level. The Russian economy should become a «high-wage economy,» Vladimir Putin urged.
The salary of our compatriots so far clearly does not correspond to the task set. In 2022, the average salary, according to Rosstat, increased by 14% to 40.37 thousand rubles per month. At the same time, inflation reached almost 12%. Therefore, the total positive effect turned out to be imperceptible, and the real incomes of the population as a whole even decreased by 1%.
According to Igor Nikolaev, chief researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, despite the fact that real incomes began to increase this year, the growth of only 0.1% in the first quarter indicates insufficient resources to pay high salaries.
— The criterion of income at which one can speak of the achievement of the level of «high wages» by the economy should be countries where salaries by all measures — in comparison with expenses, the cost of transport, utilities, and so on — are at an obviously high level and allow satisfying all reasonable wants and needs. Given that in the structure of the total income of Russians, wages account for 65% of real financial income, a more progressive approach to increasing wage growth rates is required to improve well-being. In our country, the increase in wages that officials are talking about is actually only nominal. It does not solve the personal problems of a person, does not stimulate consumer demand, on which the authorities are going to stake for the future economic recovery.
However, the choice of criteria for evaluation, when it comes to such subtle things as the «economics of high wages», may become as difficult as the implementation of the task itself. Even the size of the salary can cause controversy: for example, for Moscow, a salary of 70 thousand rubles is likely to seem quite modest, but for a resident of the province, where prices are lower than the capital, it seems almost like manna from heaven.
— The truth is simple — for the growth of real incomes of the population, high rates of economic development at the national level are necessary. Contrary to the optimism that profile officials often radiate, there is no progress in this direction. The maximum that is currently available to Russia is the achievement of the bar contained in the forecast of the Central Bank to increase the gross domestic product in 2023 — 0.5-2%. The forecasts of the Ministry of Economic Development — 1.2% — do not look better either. At this speed, no economy can boast the status of «high wages».
We need to focus on the best international practice. You won’t have to go far: for example, the Chinese economy grew by 4.5% in annual terms in the first quarter of 2023. Russia will not be able to compare with Beijing soon, so our country will not receive the right to assign such a high title to its own financial system for many years to come.