Tools to Ensure the Affordability of Food in the Context of New Challenges

The presented study examines the essence, specific features of calculation, and trends in the dynamics of food affordability, as well as the development of tools to increase real disposable household income as a crucial factor for the formation of domestic demand for food under modern conditions.

Aim. The study aims to systematize theoretical approaches and analyze the institutional aspects of ensuring the affordability of food to substantiate promising directions for improving the national income and tax policy that would facilitate an increase in the aggregate demand for food.

Tasks. The author examines the adjustment of the essence of the concept of “affordability” of food in the new edition of the Food Security Doctrine as a reflection of new global challenges and internal risks; assesses the current state of affordability of staple foods among the population in general and in the context of specific income groups, the dynamics of real disposable household income, and changes in the structure of effective demand; substantiates recommendations for the development of the institutional component of real income regulation and taxation of individuals.

Methods. This study uses comparison, systems analysis, systematization of information, and the monographic method.

Results. The ratio of actual consumption of staple foods, rational consumption rates for Russian households in general and in the context of specific income groups are analyzed. Food products that are currently not affordable are identified. Structural changes in the consumer demand of low-income groups are determined. The parameters of inter-industry, intra-industry, and regional wage differentiation that have a negative impact on the quality of life and affordability of food are analyzed. The conducted study shows that there is currently a high tax burden on individuals in Russia, composed of direct and indirect taxes.

Conclusions. The author substantiates the advisability of including a decrease in real household income and the ensuing insufficiently high aggregate domestic demand for food in the list of economic risks provided by the Food Security Doctrine; shows that adhering to the monetarist model of economic development leads to a low inflation rate but does not create conditions for accelerated economic growth and exacerbates the problems of poverty and socio-economic differentiation; proves that under modern conditions it is advisable to improve the national income policy by increasing the real disposable income of the most deprived part of the population and developing small forms of agribusiness and food trade to expand the competitive environment of the food market. The author emphasizes the importance of improving the institutional aspects of regulating various types of wage differentiation and concludes that there are objective prerequisites for the transition to progressive taxation and introduction of a non-taxable part of income at a subsistence level for the most deprived segments of the population.

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