The issue of the level of consumption and the minimum human needs in Russia has long been regulated at the legislative level. To calculate the average budget spent by the average Russian on food per month, just look at the consumer basket, recommended and regularly updated by the Russian government since 1992.
A consumer basket is a specific list of food items that should be enough for an ordinary person to function normally for a month. According to the current average prices, the average cost of the consumer basket is calculated, and then the amount of money, which, according to the government's plans, should be enough for the life of one person, which is the Russian subsistence minimum.
The current consumer basket for today is from 2017. According to the law, it was supposed to be revised in 2018, but the Ministry of Labor in the fall of 2017 decided that the basket should be “frozen” for a period of 3 years. That is, the new basket will be updated for Russians only by 2021.
From the contents of the consumer basket (and it is calculated by experts and ministries taking into account the objective data of Rosstat) and the average prices in the country, it is necessary to calculate how much money an ordinary person will have for food for one month.
In 2012, the Government of the Russian Federation adopted Federal Law No. 227, which strictly regulated and carefully described the contents of the consumer basket for the average Russian. Based on this list (which, by the way, today includes 156 types of goods), you can roughly calculate how much you will have to spend on food for one person.
List of Essential Foods:
- bread and baked goods
- chicken eggs
- pasta
- flour
- different types of cereals
- fruits and vegetables
- meat and chicken products
- seafood, fish
- milk products
- vegetable oil
- condiments and spices
- sugar
- tea
So, when calculating the cost of food per person per month, statisticians usually take into account the most inexpensive of the possible offers of the product line, because it is no coincidence that this value is called the "minimum". That is, it is believed that this minimum set of products at the lowest affordable prices will be enough for good nutrition. For example, 1 kg of frozen gutted fish in Russia today costs from 120-150 rubles (cut fish, which is essentially the same product, costs two or even three times more). Fruits are also taken at an average price, for example, at the cost of inexpensive apples or bananas - from 60 rubles per kilogram.
According to the Government of the Russian Federation, a person for a normal existence cannot do a month without 9 kg of bread, 8, 4 kg of potatoes, 9 kg of vegetables, 4, 8 kg of fresh fruit, 1, 8 kg of sweets, 2, 4 kg of dairy products, 1, 2 kg of vegetable oil and fats, as well as 1.5 kg of fish, 4.8 kg of meat products and a total of 15 eggs.
So, if you bring all the products into the product price list of the minimum prices in 2017, then it will turn out, according to the calculations of Rosstat, that an adult will have enough for a month only 6,300 rubles, a minor child will have enough 6,400 rubles, and a pensioner - 5,400 rubles. That is, a family of two adults and one child, who have a common household, needs at least 19,000 rubles a month or 633 rubles a day.
