POST-PANDEMIC POVERTY WILL BE HIGHER

More than 700 million people, or 10% of the world’s population, live in extreme poverty. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some 97 million more people are living on less than $1.90 a day, the World Bank warns.

In May 2021, the humanitarian organization Global Network Against Food Crises published a report that reads, “155 million people in 55 countries around the world were in crisis or worse off in 2020, 20 million more than the year before, and in 2021. 142 million people in 40 countries will be in food crisis.”

In connection with World Day of the Poor (14.11), the World Bank published a report on global poverty, to which the Director of the UKSW Center for the World Economy, Prof. Konrad Raczkowski, PhD, responded in an interview with Polish Radio 24.

– Certainly, the World Bank is right to sound the alarm. Will poverty decrease after the pandemic? On the contrary. Poverty is likely to be higher.

– The world’s middle class will melt away at a rather rapid pace, as we are already seeing. Rather, the stratification will go in the direction of increasing capital accumulation in the hands of this one percent (…). Capital accumulation in previous years was very low.

The entire interview with Prof. Raczkowski can be heard at: https://www.polskieradio24.pl/130/5925/Artykul/2848149,Po-pandemii-ubostwo-bedzie-wieksze-Prof-Konrad-Raczkowski-komentuje-raport-Banku-Swiatowego