Covid-19: Are we asking the right questions about… Poverty reduction?
- The Covid-19 pandemic and the measures we have taken to combat it are likely to leave all South Africans poorer for a long time.
- Estimates of the number of jobs already lost run to well over a million, with hundreds of thousands of other people experiencing large reductions to their incomes.
- A larger proportion of the incomes of middle- and upper-income households is “at risk” in this crisis, so income inequality may be today somewhat less unequal that it was two months ago. This relative improvement is not likely to last.
- Unless South Africa emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic with a real plan to accelerate growth dramatically and sustainably, it may come to be seen as the final nail in the coffin of an economic, social and political order.
