Russians are getting poorer: the head of Sberbank admitted a significant drop in salaries

In the first half of 2025, more than a third of working citizens of Russia faced a decrease in wages.

This was stated by the head of Sberbank, German Gref, referring to the bank’s internal data, The Moscow Times reports.

In particular, 34% of Russians noted that their incomes had decreased, and one in fourteen (7%) had their earnings more than halved. At the same time, 11% of respondents reported that their incomes had remained unchanged, and only 55% recorded an increase in salaries.

“When I first saw these numbers, I thought it was some kind of mistake. But they are real. This is the case when everything looks decent on the outside, but inside there are problems,” Gref commented, comparing the situation to the so-called “watermelon effect” – green on the outside, but red on the inside.

He also noted that a similar situation is observed with official inflation data. According to Rosstat, the pace of price growth in the country has slowed down somewhat: if in March the annual inflation was 10.3%, then at the end of May it was already 9.9%. However, for the poorest segments of the population, whose main expenses are on food, real inflation can reach 20%.

“When we rapidly raise regulated tariffs and then try to keep overall inflation at 4%, it means that somewhere we have to reduce prices. And it will be very difficult to do this – or even painful,” the head of Sberbank emphasized.

Despite these signals, official statistics show wage growth in 2024: the nominal average wage in the Russian Federation rose by 18.3% to 87,950 rubles. Taking into account inflation, the real growth was 9.1%.

However, by March 2025, the dynamics had slowed down noticeably: real salaries had actually “frozen”, increasing by only 0.1%, although nominally they reached 97,650 rubles per month – 10.5% more than last year.

Recall that the war against Ukraine, sanctions, and increased spending on the military-industrial complex led to an increase in prices for basic food products in Russia.

As reported, Russia is experiencing an acute labor shortage in many sectors of the economy.

By the way, the head of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, stated that Russia has exhausted the resources that allowed the economy to demonstrate growth for two consecutive years in conditions of war and sanctions.

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