Oddly, it is the price of eggs that seems to stick in my mind every week. Last week they were 55 rupees a dozen, this week they are 58. As I ride a bike and do not drive a car I am less observant of the price of fuel than I am of eggs, but motoring friends tell me that their cars are ever-more difficult to afford to run, and ‘leisure and pleasure’ driving no longer an option. Comparing the daily record of my expenditures (yes, Dear Reader, I really do keep a record of what I spend every day) with that of the same time last year I can see that my household expenditures have risen by 27 per cent over the figure for last August. It’s not rocket science and I have a calculator to help me as I have never been much good at sums, but the picture is clear – the cost of living is going through the roof and it is beginning to affect me and my purchasing patterns.
Although far from rich I am not poor either, but I know a lot of people who are and one of them is my ‘daily’ who comes in six days a week to keep me clean and fed. Her husband works as a chowkidar in a prestigious local school and they have four school-age children. I like to think that I treat my employees well, but looking at an analysis of what I pay my ‘daily’ every year maybe I am not such a good employer after all. ‘Poverty’ is a much misunderstood term, and definitions of it can vary widely. One definition that has not changed for years but has undergone a recent revision – is the ‘dollar a day’ benchmark, which is now $1.25. This translates to slightly over 100rps, or roughly what I pay my ‘daily’ per day.
Now set that against an inflation rate that in August has been posted at 24.83 per cent. The rate was 6.41 per cent for the corresponding period last year. Inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index, recorded the highest-ever increase of 25.33 per cent in August, compared to 6.45 per cent over the same month last year. Assorted analysts and commentators are saying that inflation will increase as there is no easing of price increases of essentials such as food, energy, education, healthcare, house rent and transportation. No wonder eggs seem expensive this week.
Being poor is not a ‘steady state’ either, and we are beginning to see a sharp rise in what are called ‘transitory poor’ in Pakistan. A recent study by the Centre for Research on Poverty and Income Distribution (CRPID) indicates that 63 per cent of those defined as poor – using a mean over a basket of definitions to iron out the differences – are now in the category of ‘transitory poor’, or below the poverty line for the majority of the time but not always in any defined period. Of the rest of the poor population 32 per cent are chronically poor and 5 per cent are extremely poor. The chronic and extremely poor groups are always below the poverty line for all of the time in any defined period. Of those who live above the poverty line 13 per cent and 21 per cent of the total non-poor were classified as ‘transitory vulnerable’ and ‘transitory non-poor’ respectively. The tax burden for the poor and almost-poor has increased by about 35 per cent in the last decade (taxes from all sources, direct and indirect) whilst there has been little or no increase in taxes due or collected from the richest 2 per cent of the population. We are thus able to see that the words ‘poverty’ and ‘poor’ are far from definitive, and families and individuals can move in and out of poverty – and once in poverty may experience it at a range of levels.
Sorry to burden you with all this complicated stuff about poverty when most of you reading this are rich enough to have sufficient disposable income to afford a luxury like a daily newspaper, but the poor are getting poorer by the day. In the end they may just lie down and die – but they may get angry, instead. If they do then heaven help us all.
The writer is a British social worker settled in Pakistan and can be reached at manticore73@gmail.com. This is reprinted from The News.
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