Since the USSR's collapse, Russia faced many problems that free market proponents in 1992 did not expect. Among other things, 25% of the population lived below the poverty line, life expectancy had fallen, birthrates were low, and the GDP was halved. There was a sharp increase in economic inequality between 1988/1989 and 1993/1995, with the Gini ratio increasing by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries. These problems led to a series of crises in the 1990s, which nearly led to the election of Yeltsin's Communist challenger, Gennady Zyuganov, in the 1996 presidential election. After the turn of the century, the economy of Russia has begun to improve greatly, due to major investments and business development and also due to high prices of natural resources.