Seven of the “poor”: State Duma deputies’ minimum salary has reached 550,000 rubles, and is now 24 times higher than the average pension. Since the prewar years, it has grown by a quarter

Forwarded From We Can Explain

Seven of the “poor”: State Duma deputies’ minimum salary has reached 550,000 rubles, and is now 24 times higher than the average pension. Since the prewar years, it has grown by a quarter

“MO” studied the declarations of State Duma deputies running for re-election on party lists and who worked throughout 2025. It turned out that even the “poorest” parliamentarians earn about 540,000–565,000 rubles a month. That is almost a quarter more than in the Duma of the previous convocation, and several times higher than the incomes of teachers, doctors, and pensioners.

◾️The seven least well-off deputies, receiving approximately the same amount (the income spread does not exceed 4.6%), worked throughout 2025 and declared from 6.4 to 6.8 million rubles in annual income. Their other colleagues have annual incomes of 7 million and above. Thus, even the “poorest” parliamentarians receive from 540,000 to 565,000 rubles per month.

◾️In 2020, “Open Media” (the predecessors of the “We Can Explain” project), having studied the declarations of the “poorest” parliamentarians, estimated their average salary for the previous year at 450,000 rubles per month. Thus, since the prewar years, deputies’ incomes have increased by about 24% — by more than 100,000 rubles per month. In recent years, they stopped publishing declarations annually, and only in election years can their earnings be assessed.

◾️Our sample included the lowest-paid sitting deputies from United Russia, the Communist Party, the LDPR, and New People. The minimum average monthly income was 539,993 rubles for United Russia member Rakhim Azimov, and the maximum was 564,803 rubles for Ivan Sukharev of the LDPR. At the same time, Sukharev lives on a single deputy’s salary, while the other six listed deposit interest and social insurance fund payments as additional income, but in the end the amounts turned out to be about the same. None of them heads Duma committees — their chairmen’s salaries are significantly higher.

◾️“MO” also studied the declarations of another 13 United Russia deputies whose only listed source of income is the State Duma apparatus. Even among the five with the lowest incomes, annual earnings ranged from 6.87 to 7.21 million rubles, or from 572,600 to 600,600 rubles per month. And among the richest elected officials living on salary, income exceeds 1 million rubles per month.

◾️According to Rosstat, in 2025 the average salary of teachers was 71,300 rubles, doctors — 81,700, and the average pension — 23,400 rubles per month. Thus, even the “poorest” State Duma deputies receive about 6.8 times more than doctors, 7.6 times more than teachers, and almost 24 times more than the average pensioner. The income gap between doctors and deputies has widened: in 2019 it was 5.6 times.

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