While one infected world leader continues to make light of COVID-19 and polish girls having sex videosits effects on the economy, the full impact of the pandemic is only just starting to make itself known.
Case in point: An in-depth report from the World Bank, released Wednesday, which estimates that up to 100 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty by the end of 2020 — and up to 50 million more will follow in 2021 — due to the coronavirus and the economic crisis following in its wake. Previous World Bank estimates had suggested the number would be around 49 million total.
Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day, the median value of the poverty line in the world's poorest countries. It's such a basic level of subsistence that we in the wealthy 21st century have no excuse not to provide it to every human. In 2015, the United Nations declared its first and most important Sustainable Development Goal was to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. And we were actually on course to achieve it: From 2015 to 2019, the number of people below the $1.90 threshold dropped from 740 million to around 550 million.
Coronavirus, in short, is sending us back to square one. "Poverty reduction has suffered its worst setback in decades, after nearly a quarter century of steady global declines," says the 200-page report, titled Reversals of Fortune. "Pandemic-related job losses and deprivation worldwide are hitting already-poor and vulnerable people hard, while also changing the profile of global poverty by creating millions of 'new poor'... the effects of the current crisis will almost certainly be felt in most countries through 2030."
"In a literal sense, people became poor overnight."
That's not at all what the poverty experts at the World Bank expected to be writing when they began work on the 2020 report. "Nothing like COVID was on our minds," says Carolina Sánchez-Páramo, the organization's global director of poverty and equity. The report was expected to highlight "a few red flags," such as sub-Saharan Africa, the only part of the world where extreme poverty was on the rise.
Then the pandemic struck, the World Bank started doing monthly phone surveys around the world, and the level of the crisis shocked its leadership. For example, 42 percent of respondents in Nigeria lost their jobs in May. Half began eating less. In South America and the Caribbean, 40 percent of those surveyed ran out of food during lockdowns.
"The impacts materialized immediately," adds Sánchez-Páramo. "In a literal sense, people became poor overnight."
SEE ALSO: 7 coping skills to deal with anger you might be feeling right nowPart of the problem is that millions of people had only just escaped the $1.90 poverty line, especially in east and south Asia. China alone was on course to eradicate extreme poverty in 2020, according to one research paper from December by the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. India was celebrating having pulled 100 million from its poorest ranks over the past decade. But nearly all of these people went into the next two tiers of poverty — earning less than $3.20 a day and $5.50 a day, the dividing lines for lower-middle and upper-middle income economies. Coronavirus has sent them spinning back down, especially in India, which is now estimated to see 50 million more people in extreme poverty.
And all these figures could yet be revised downwards, depending on how much inequality grows in individual countries post-pandemic. "Our numbers could be optimistic, sad to say," says Sánchez-Páramo. "We've been pushed off the rails. Getting back on track will be very difficult." Especially given the report's other sobering estimate: Up to 130 million morepeople could be pushed into extreme poverty by climate change between now and 2030.
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By then, the report estimates, up to 7 percent of the world's population will be earning less than $1.90 a day — a far cry from eradicating it altogether by 2030. That, according to other poverty researchers, can only be achieved now if the economies of the world's poorest countries grow by an unprecedented amount per year after 2021 — and if that growth is distributed equally.
If there's one bright spot in this global downturn, it's that it makes the case for countries to conduct more experiments with Universal Basic Income (as is already happening), which will help protect their poorest citizens no matter which tier of poverty they're in. As Sánchez-Páramo says: "It doesn't even need to be universal to have an impact."
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