Tatyana Ivakhnenko on the reduction of inequality in income distribution in Russia in 2025-2026

Researchers at the Gaidar Institute’s Mathematical Modeling of Economic Processes Department have concluded in a study on income inequality that the income gap between different groups of the Russian population will cease growing in 2025–2026. According to the study, over the past 25 years, inequality has been growing during periods of economic recovery and decreasing during periods of stagnation. The Gaidar Institute experts conclude that this is a natural consequence of economic cycles, when crises lead to bankruptcies, higher borrowing costs and lower business activity. And attribute it more to the impoverishment of the rich than the enrichment of the poor Therefore, in 2025–2026, economists expect social inequality to decline as a consequence of the projected slowdown in Russia’s economy.

«Inequality is a highly relative category; it is very difficult to express it in any specific values. For example, the Gini index in the United States is one of the highest in the world, simply because most of the world’s billionaires live there. The gap between members of the billionaires' club and an unemployed homeless person is enormous. However, if we look at absolute numbers, an unemployed American feels much better off financially than a working South Asian.

Tatyana Ivakhnenko also noted that changes in the Gini index should not be viewed in terms of «winners» and «losers», as economic crises have an equalizing effect, slowing down the leaders. She emphasized that the Gini index can rise even in prosperous economies, when the wealthiest segments of the population get richer faster than others, but at the same time all segments of the population as a whole become richer.

«In Russia, the level of inequality is one of the highest among all post-Soviet countries, and we are also leaders in terms of interregional inequality. This implies that the fluctuations in the Gini index, which we record in a multi-year perspective, do not make much difference, the difference of a fraction of a percent up or down at the practical level cannot be felt," the expert concluded.

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