Balance of the Monetary Income and Expenditure of the Population

a component part of the balance of the USSR’s national economy which, using special calculations, describes the formation and use of the portion of the income going to the population in the form of monetary income. In the process of socialist reproduction, distribution, and redistribution of national income, the workers receive their personal income, predominantly in a monetary form, in the form of wages and also from the social consumption funds.

The sources of the population’s monetary income are (1) the wages of the workers in state, cooperative, and social enterprises and institutions; income of the wage type such as bonuses and surpayments for particular working conditions, travel expenses, moving expenses, and so forth; (2) monetary payments to kolkhoz members and other workers; (3) monetary receipts from the sale of agricultural products by the population to the procurement, trade, and other organizations, as well as on kolkhoz markets; (4) payments from the social consumption funds such as pensions, scholarships, aid, and so forth; (5) receipts from the financial and credit system (payoffs in loans and lotteries, insurance settlements, interest on savings bank deposits, and so forth); (6) other receipts from the sale of personal effects to organizations (purchasing centers, secondhand stores, and so forth).

The sale of agricultural products by the agricultural population to other groups of the population, as well as the sale of goods and the rendering of services by one group of the population to another, leads to the movement of money between these groups. As a result, the monetary income of the kolkhoz members has basically grown.

The expenditures of the population include (1) purchases in state and cooperative trade; (2) compulsory and voluntary payments by the population including taxes, fees, insurance premiums, and payments to cooperative and other social organizations; (3) payment for services, the share of which has risen with the growth of the people’s prosperity. Included in such services are expenditures for apartment rent and other housing and utility necessities (for heating, water, gas, electricity, and so forth); for the consumer services of laundries, baths, and so forth; for entertainment such as movies, theaters, and so forth; for partial payment to children’s institutions for the cost keeping the children; for trips to sanatoriums and recreational facilities; for all types of transportation (including municipal); and for communications services (letters, telegrams, telephone). Savings constitute a separate item in the use of the population’s monetary income; they include deposits in savings banks, the purchasing of the bonds of state loans, premiums for all types of insurance, and so forth.

The balance reflects the interrelationships of the state and social enterprises and organizations with the population, as well as the relationships between various groups of the population (the purchasing of foodstuffs on the kolkhoz market by manual and white-collar workers, and the monetary income of the peasantry from the sale of these foodstuffs). The monetary income of the population, with the exceptions of the payment for services and of compulsory and voluntary payments and savings, make up the purchasing fund or the effective demand of the population for commodities (from current income). The volume of retail commodity turnover is planned in accord with this. The increase in savings bank deposits, as an indicator of an increase in prosperity, at the same time also reflects the presence of deferred demand.

The balance is used for planning and analyzing the national economic proportions between the effective demand of the population and the supply of commodities, between outlays on the purchasing of commodities and for paying for services, and so forth, as well as for planning monetary circulation. The balance sheets are also used in working out the cash plans of the State Bank. The balance of the population’s monetary income and expenditure is compiled for the entire population as well as separately for the following groups: manual and white-collar workers and peasantry. It is compiled for the USSR (starting in 1928), and also for the Union republics, krais, and oblasts (since 1955 for the RSFSR and the Ukrainian SSR, and since 1959 for the remaining Union republics). The territorial balances provide an opportunity to plan monetary circulation and retail commodity turnover for the regions of the nation.