Therefore, to seriously talk about what will happen to our economy, calculating the percentage here or there, is the lot of only those who are charged with professional duties. This is, if we talk about state structures, first of all, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Central Bank, as well as various financial analytical centers. They have a thankless job. For example, the inflation forecast for 2021 included in all regulatory documents, including the budget, was less than 4%. As a result, as it turned out now, they received more than 8%.
But this does not mean that we do not understand what trends Russia is living in. If everything in politics can change within a matter of days (the most recent example is Kazakhstan), then economic and especially social realities change extremely slowly due to the very strong inertia of these processes. We see many historical examples when power is changing rapidly, and what was previously called “productive forces” continues to develop in the same direction. The exception is revolutions that forcibly break even the deepest foundations of life. Russian examples are 1917 and then 1991-1992.
Today’s Russia, despite the accumulated mass of systemic problems, will hopefully not face a revolution, if only because of the very powerful inertia of socio-economic processes. And in this sense, one can carefully imagine the contours of not the political, but the current life of the country in 2022.
I’ll start with the main conclusion: nothing fundamentally changes.
If we take the economy, then there are no prerequisites for the start of the “Russian miracle”, when its growth rates will jump up to at least 4-5% per year. Of course, the continuation of the coronavirus pandemic can prevent this. Everyone expects another wave of morbidity, and with it the tightening of restrictions. The mass use of QR codes, apparently, makes sanitary sense, but for the economy this is a clear deduction. Moreover, quarantined working people (and we can talk about almost millions) for the most part cannot work, even if they feel fine – remote work can not always be used.
However, it’s not just the pandemic. As you know, even before it began, our economy fell into a stupor, when growth rates were steadily hovering around zero. The reasons, it seems to me, are clear.
Against the backdrop of a stagnating commodity sector (production is growing very slowly, while export prices are falling much faster), the “nightmare” of small and medium-sized businesses continued. On the other hand, the nationalization (direct and indirect) of the economy and the banking sector was very noticeable, which, as a rule, predetermines the low efficiency of the use of assets. I’m not talking about the decline in the quality of the judicial system, which is directly related to the level of entrepreneurial and investment activity.
Yes, in 2021, oil prices and especially gas prices have grown, but all the super-profits we have are added to the National Welfare Fund — there are already more than 13 trillion rubles lying dead weight. We also have a budget surplus and gold and foreign exchange reserves are growing. And at the same time, even official projections are considered an optimistic scenario if our economy grows by 3% per year in the coming years. So Russia will never catch up with developed countries, where GDP per capita, and hence the standard of living of the main part of the population, is 1.5–2 times higher than ours, which is what the vast majority of Russians dream of.
But if the economy was developing in a sluggish mode before the pandemic, then the real incomes of the population since 2014 have collectively decreased by more than 10%. In 2020, they continued to fall, pushed by the coronavirus. In 2021, this fall was, judging by preliminary estimates, won back. But what’s next?
You don’t have to be an expert here to assume that no miracles will happen in the next 2-3 years. If there is growth, it will not be more than 2-3%, which is promised to our economy. In practice, this means that those who are still successful, working in export industries, will continue to be so. But those who are not lucky with a job that pays a very modest salary, and a large part of the small businesses that will never recover from the pandemic impact of 2020, will have a hard time. Moreover, inflation, despite the crusade declared against it, does not want to decrease in 2022 either. This, in particular, is evidenced by the first January official data.
Separately, it must be said about pensioners. Last year, despite the September one-time payment of 10,000, the real content of pensions slightly, but decreased. And when compared with food inflation, which has gone off scale for 10%, then the decline in the standard of living of the elderly will be significant. No wonder the president ordered that pensions be indexed not by 5.9%, as planned, but by 8.6%. Apparently, this practice of one-time injections into the pension system will continue this year and next year, both due to rising prices and in connection with the upcoming presidential elections in 2024.
This, however, will only slightly mitigate the declining standard of living for most of us that has emerged since 2014. But our statistics have already begun to prepare for this unpleasant situation. Like a magician’s sleeve, methods of how to measure poverty are pulled out into the light of day, but with one result – to report, first of all to the president, that everything is going well with us in this parameter. So there is no doubt that poverty statistics in 2022 will be very positive. True, public opinion will just as unanimously answer “I don’t believe it!”.
But here’s what the coming year can really show us is the multiplying open signs of mass emotional burnout of people.
Now medical workers who are deadly tired of fighting covid are talking about this a lot. Despite special surcharges, doctors, nurses, nurses are slowly starting to leave healthcare. Those who have retired are asked to return to their place.
But signs of emotional burnout have become very noticeable not only in healthcare. So, according to research by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, if in 2015 the level of negative feelings and emotions (indifference, resentment, shame, contempt, indignation) among Russians was only 18%, then in 2020-2021 this figure has doubled – to 35%. At the same time, the population (people aged 20–30–40 and even 50 years old) considers the last two years to be the worst in their memory, comparing the current state of affairs in the country with the situation in the 1990s.
In this regard, society urgently needs a positive. In 2022, we will apparently see attempts by the authorities to generate it. What could it be? The already mentioned lump-sum payments to different groups of the population? Something geopolitical?
I think that we will soon see this in the next Address of the President to the Federal Assembly. Will it help reverse the current deep trends? Everything will depend on how much it will be guessed what people implicitly want, but cannot, for various reasons, present publicly.
Sociology clearly points to these sentiments. The share of Russians advocating decisive changes in the country increased, according to opinion polls, from 42% to 59% in 2017-2019. For minor changes – 31%, and 8% do not need any changes. Most likely, developments in 2020-2021 have only further strengthened these sentiments. And this is the main mandate from the society of power in the coming year.
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