Authors

Discussion

Effective poverty prevention management is based on the union between state security systems and a wide range of tools accessible to poor people to improve their life (Hills & Stewart, 2005). In 2011 and 2021,  data was collected with face-to-face surveys of 500 households living in the small Russian town Pavlovo. The social groups of poor people were identified using several approaches such as official criteria for receiving social benefits, the deprivation model (Roger, 2017) and self-identification (DeHaan et al., 2018). During the last ten years, the amount of the state´s social benefits for people in need has increased, but the life quality of this group has decreased. The growth of state social benefits in family budgets has been accompanied by a decrease in other individual opportunities to escape poverty such as findings a new job to improve their living conditions. The assistance of low-income families from other social institutions has also been declining. In 2021 they received less support from social networks, including their relatives, neighbours, and NGOs. The expectations made in 2011 that local resources would be activated to prevent poverty, and hope for the empowerment of those in need, were not met in 2021. The state policy seems to be a dominant tool for poverty prevention, and poor people’s dependency on state support continues to grow.