Extreme Poverty Shifts Gear… in Reverse

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The coronavirus has dominated all of our lives in recent months. Radical paths were taken by politicians in the form of lockdowns to contain the pandemic. But we should recognize that even if the coronavirus is a (major) challenge for us, we always have to keep a holistic view of world events. Just as there are epidemiological factors to consider in this crisis, there are also economic, social, cultural, political and other health factors at play. It is precisely these other factors that are so often forgotten in the panicky reporting, in the constant, manic tracking of the current infection numbers, that we want to take a look at in our series “The Costs of Coronavirus Lockdowns” in the coming weeks.

Global poverty has seen a phenomenal decline for decades. For instance, half a century ago almost every second person in the world lived in extreme poverty. Today, even with a population twice as large as 1970, we managed to cut that number to below 10%. But for poverty to continue dropping people need to continue working, something coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions have not allowed. What is even worse, not only has the process stopped but it has been put in reverse.

As the World Bank reported, 2020 is expected to push between 119 and 124 million more people, into extreme poverty. The pandemic showed us how fragile the process of progress is. Since there is no end in sight to the pandemic, we can only hope for a not so dramatic increase in the stock of people living in extreme poverty in 2021.