SOCIAL FEELING UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF A HISTORIC HIGH

We begin our analysis of social indices with citing the words by Minister of Economic Affairs N. Snopkov: “The record salary rate of $ 565 is a historic high. By the end of 2013, as expected, we should reach $ 600; that is why for the time left the approach to increasing salaries up to the anticipated level must be directly coordinated with labor productivity”.
N. Snopkov’s statement concerning the historic high was made at the meeting of the Council of Ministers on June 14, i.e. upon completing IISEPS June opinion poll. We suppose that 1513 respondents who answered the questionnaire were hardly worried about the prospects of coordinating salary growth with growth in labor productivity; however, they surely could not have missed the two-digit increase in salaries. The fact was registered by all three social indices (according to Belstat, the take-home pay between January and May, 2013 grew by 21.5% in comparison with the period between January and May, 2012).
In all fairness it has to be mentioned that increasing the average pay so considerably the state had to trespass against one of the base principles of the Belarusian model – the social justice principle. In particular, the take-home pay of public sector employees during the period between January and April grew up by 6.8% and the pay of constructors – by 43.3%. It is impossible not to remember here head of state’s aphorism: “If we lose teachers that will be the end. We will walk drunk and naked”.
To comply with principles, including the social justice principle, one needs resources. Under the conditions of resources shortage the state has to divide social and professional groups depending on their contribution to maintaining stability. Because of an excessive demand for constructors on the territory of contiguous states they are allotted additional “dietary”. There is no demand, however, for Belarusian pensioners on the part of either Russia or Poland; hence one should not be surprised that for the last time pensions in Belarus were valorized in November, 2012. The 10% raise in July can hardly be called valorization. It simply compensates for the price surge loss.
Let us address the social indices directly (Tables 1-3). All of them have visibly grown, however they have not left the negative zone anyway. Compare the last values of the indices with the ones in the first column. The June pay caught up with and outstripped the pay of December, 2012. However, one can’t step into the same river twice. The salaries equaled, but what about prices and the population’s needs? It is not ruled out that the difference in the social indices value registered in the outermost columns of Tables 1-3 should be recognized as one of the main results of the three years of the fourth five-year plan.

Table 1. Dynamics of answering the question: “How has your personal financial standing changed for the last three months?”, %

* Financial standing index (the difference of positive and negative answers)

Table 2. Dynamics of answering the question: “How is the socio-economic situation going to change in Belarus within the next few years?”, %

* Expectations index

Table 3. Dynamics of answering the question: “Is the state of things in our country developing in general in the right or in the wrong direction?”, %

* Policy correctness index
In March, 2011 an average Belarusian made 1.537 thousand rubles or $ 508 in dollar terms. The opinion poll was held in the first half of the month – that is before the termination of free exchange of rubles for dollars and euro. As it follows from Table 4, the way Belarusians estimate their well-being has changed slightly for the last three years, but at the same time the share of people “of average means” has increased.

Let us “intercross” answers to the questions of Tables 3 and 4 (Table 5). No surprise happened here: among those who are able to purchase durables without difficulty the share of respondents approving of the country’s development line is almost three times larger than among those who do not have enough money even for food (the group “We can afford rather expensive purchases – an apartment, a summer cottage, etc.” was not analyzed due to its paucity).

The data of Table 5 can be regarded as an illustration to the promise of Minister of Economic Affairs N. Snopkov to raise the average pay up to $ 600 by the end of the year. The government and their mentors from the Presidential Administration simply have no other means to reckon on approval of their actions on the part of voters.
In spite of reaching the historic high of the average pay, the overwhelming majority of respondents continue to think that Belarusian economy finds itself in crisis (Table 6). However, it should be mentioned for fairness’ sake that their number has been slowly decreasing: by 11.9 points during the year, and by 5 points for the last three months.

As the data of Table 7 show, among those who “can hardly make both ends meet” 78.3% consider Belarusian economy to be in crisis, and among those who “can buy durables without difficulty” there are only 33.6% of such people. Thus, it can be averred that each Belarusian has his/her own sense of crisis, and the sense is determined by his/her purchasing power to a considerable extent.

Although, contrary to the numerous pessimistic predictions, the crisis itself did not lead to social and political destabilization, it substantially shattered assuredness of a considerable part of Belarusians in the correctness of the policy chosen in 1994. An irreversible process of realizing that not everything is alright in the country, and that the policy pursued by the authorities needs if not drastic demolition then appreciable correcting, is under way in society.