In Russia, a significant part of the population lives below the poverty line. The question is, how big is .? The answer depends on the definition of what should be considered the poverty level. Russian researchers and politicians of the reform period quite freely manipulate this concept, and their estimates of the extent of poverty in the country are often radically different. The methodology used by the Russian statistical bodies for assessing poverty, as the authors of the study prove, is also unsatisfactory. The criterion of the subsistence minimum on which it is built is, in principle, acceptable. However, in determining the level of poverty, the subsistence minimum is compared with the per capita monetary income of the population, which does not take into account other possible ways of obtaining consumer goods - for example, at the expense of a personal subsidiary farm. In addition, the methodology ignores the savings in per capita costs by increasing the size of the family (due to joint consumption of housing, the purchase of public goods, etc.) p. ). Hence - an incorrect assessment of the level of poverty in Russia . The authors set the task to revise the official data on the level of poverty taking into account these factors. Applying one of the international methods, they replace in determining the level of poverty the indicator of per capita monetary income with the indicator of per capita consumer spending of the family. This made it possible to estimate not only the monetary expenses of households, but also the consumption of products produced in a personal subsidiary .. In addition, the analysis also took into account the funds of farms that go to savings ....