Subjective assessments, opinions and perceptions of the population about the economic aspects of life (both personal and the country's life) are rational and pragmatic and are a powerful indicator of the forthcoming changes in the country's economic development, since the population is the largest economic agent, whose aggregated behavior directly affects the economic dynamics. The article discusses the relationship between subjective assessments of the country's economic development and objective data of economic statistics. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of people's ideas about the signs of the development of crisis phenomena in the economy. The results of the analysis show that the Russian population, readily discussing the criterions of the begging, termination, consequences, etc. of economic crises, most often speaks not about some temporary state of the country's economy, but about the usual and unchanging everyday life that lasts for decades. The subjective perception of living conditions by the majority of Russian families is best described by the word “crisis,” while the extraordinary, temporary, transitory meaning of this concept is lost, the crisis becomes the norm. Almost never people are talking about the economic crisis as a source of new opportunities, a catalyst for positive changes in the personal fate.