Russian and foreign historiography of the USSR standard of living includes thousands of works. They were implemented within the framework of three concepts — Soviet pro-Marxist, liberal modernization and catch-up development. The well-being of the population was analyzed from the perspective of the comparative effectiveness of the Soviet planned and liberal market economic models. The standard of living served as the main criterion for assessing effectiveness — under which system material and spiritual needs were satisfied better, it is more effective, progressive and humane. Despite the great interest in the problem, there is still no clear, empirically substantiated and convincing answer to the main questions — how did the standard of living of the population change over time under Soviet rule, in general and for individual socio-professional groups, in separate regions and republics, when it increased, decreased or remained stable and for what reasons. There is no consensus of opinion regarding changes in welfare in the USSR either in Russian or foreign historiography. Due to intense disagreement and mistrust of traditional indicators of official statistics, researchers turned to alternative anthropometric and demographic data. Noticeable progress has been achieved in this direction, and a number of interesting works have appeared. Today, the main tasks in studying the issue of living standards in the USSR are to expand the source base, update methodological tools and create professional generalizing works. The well-being of Soviet citizens is a complex and interdisciplinary problem; it must be studied using different methods, comprehensively and systematically, relying on a wide variety of sources.