Expenditure of Municipalities Budget and Population Incomes in the Russian Arctic

Abstract

The objective of this study is to assess the budget security of the Arctic municipalities and the wage level of the Arctic population in socially important sectors – education and health. The research covered three areas: analysis of budget suffciency of the population of Arctic municipalities in the social sphere; analysis of the living standard and incomes of working-age population in the urban districts of the Russian Arctic in key social areas of activity; prospects of social orientation of municipal budgets of the Russian Arctic. The novelty of the research is determined by integrated study of budgets and personal well-being of the population using the authors’ methodology for assessing the state participation in the life of the population, which allowed forming a number of proposals to improve social protection of the population of the Russian Arctic zone. The main conclusion is that social security of the population in the urban districts of the Russian Arctic is decreasing every year. The main reason for this is reduction of budget expenditures on education and health, a slowdown in wage growth in these sectors. Therefore, further development of socially important sectors needs to be supplemented by budgetary or extra budgetary resources that may involve such forms of collaboration as PPP.