Employees of power structures, the state and municipal management feel much more confident than those employed in other spheres of activities, as shown by the November poll, published in the monthly monitoring of the Russian Academy of Science and Technology, the Institute of Gaidar and VAVT.

More than half (53%) of those surveyed noted a deterioration in the economy, minor or significant. The opinion about the stabilization of the situation is shared by 40.9%, and improvements were noticed only by 3.7%. More than half of the officials (57%) and the "siloviki" (58%) believe that the situation in the economy has remained unchanged. At the same time, the respondents of these two groups demonstrate the greatest optimism (7.1% and 6.5%, respectively), speaking about the improvement of the economic situation.

Real incomes of the population have been declining for three consecutive years and are increasingly dependent on social payments. In 2016, the average Russian received 19% of the income from the state; this is a historic record, according to Rosstat.

If a small or noticeable worsening of the economic situation is reported by 53% of respondents, 78% of respondents said that these changes affected them personally, as noted in the monitoring: among those employed in industry, 1.5 times more than those who believe that the crisis will continue for two years or longer than among those employed in the state administration and in the power structures. At the same time, workers assess prospects with the greatest pessimism. The number of those who did not feel the impact of the crisis, as well as a year ago, is only 8%.

Representatives of all sectors told the sociologists about the reduction of salaries, but to a greater extent it affected workers in housing and communal services, transport and communications (31.7%), and the least - the employees of power structures and officials, among whom more than 70% do not fear further cuts in labor remuneration.

The number of security officials and officials increased from 4.94 million to 5.33 million people between 2006 and 2015, while the number of employees in manufacturing dropped from 12.44 million to 10.34 million people, according to the monitoring.

Salaries of law enforcement officers and officials are completely dependent on the budget. The state did not reduce the cost of labor in these categories during the crisis. At the same time, if on average the share of state payments in the income of Russians has almost reached 20%, then the income of 40% of the population depends on them by 50-60%, the World Bank estimated.

Among pensioners, 28% believe that over the recent years the situation has deteriorated markedly against 22% of workers, it follows from the monitoring. Among the employed person, workers have the worst estimation of the situation: one in four believes that the situation has deteriorated noticeably, while among experts at various levels this view is shared by one in five.

In 2008-2014, for every nine jobs created in the economy, there were 10 liquidated; Only trade, financial services and the public administration sector (including defense) showed a net increase in jobs. The impact of factors that lead to a reduction or restructuring of public spending is on the rise, and opportunities for higher incomes in the private sector are declining, World Bank experts state. At the same time, Russians give the state a key role in protecting the population from economic problems and ensuring further growth in incomes, but now the government is unlikely to justify these expectations, they conclude.

Now the situation is even worse than in the 1990s, Tatyana Maleva, the director of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Science and Technology, estimates that at the expense of the growth of private entrepreneurship or the NPO sector, the population could survive, and now the state determines where and how many jobs are created and the opportunities for the people are much smaller.