Can you survive with less than $2 a day? It seems unimaginable right?
surviving on less than $2 per day is a reality for approximately 600 million people throughout the world today. Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, there are millions of individuals across the United Kingdom who suffer from poverty.
About 8% of the population in the world lives in severe poverty, which is usually defined as living on less than $1.90 per day.
Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, millions of individuals in the United Kingdom suffer from poverty. If housing costs are taken into account, the government believes that up to 14.5 million individuals were in poverty before the outbreak. With a population of over 67 million people, it translates to one out of every four or five individuals in the UK. According to the Legatum Institute, another 700,000 individuals were forced into poverty as a result of the pandemic, bringing the total number of people living in poverty to almost 15 million.
It has been an issue in the United Kingdom for a long with a decade of public service layoffs driving many families farther into poverty. Many people's lives were rendered even more difficult by the Covid-19 issue, as many were laid off, lost revenue due to the furlough program, and suffered higher living expenses while in isolation.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, median household net income had been gradually increasing for two years, increasing by 3% from 2017–18 to 2019–20. But, in 12 years before 2007–08, before the latest recession, this still amounted to only a 9% increase overall. If the pre-financial-crisis rate of 2.2% annual growth had persisted after 2007–08, median income would already have risen over 20% by 2019–20.
However, several indicators of poverty increased as the outbreak began. The percentage of persons admitting to being behind on at least one of several household expenses increased by 22% from 2018–19 to April–May 2020.
Many people struggled to buy their food and were compelled to rely on food banks. Food banks were used by 1.9 % of the total population in April–May 2020, up from 1.7% in February.
Households experiencing relative income poverty before the outbreak (assessed from 2016 to 2019) experienced the greatest increases in privation when the pandemic first started. Almost all of the indicators showed minimal change in households that were not poor before the pandemic. The percentage of poor households that were behind on their bills increased from 15% in 2018–19 to 22% in April–May 2020, compared to a considerably lower increase from 5% to 6% in pre-pandemic households.
The UK was already suffering from poverty but the pandemic has exacerbated the situation. The country is gradually returning to normal as the lockdown is lifted. The UK government must, however, do something to alleviate poverty.
