End of Putin's Middle Class Boom Turns Savings Into a Luxury

Even setting money aside is becoming a luxury affordable to few Russians in an economy struggling to recover as incomes stagnate.

The ability to save marks the latest line dividing Russia’s haves and have-nots following the country’s longest recession this century, with less than a fifth of the population seeing themselves as part of the middle class. The result is that the share of incomes held as savings is now near the lowest since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, even though surveys suggest every fourth person says the time is now right to stash away money.