BY: ANISYA NAIR
COVID-19, a word, a disease, a death sentence, a way of life. Not much is known about the nature of the virus. However, we know this: the virus has dragged the lives of millions. With lagging checks and debts building up, businesses shutting down are simply the norm now. Moreover, as a subsequent consequence, there’s been an exponential increase in unemployment rates as millions are deprived of their livelihood. Such effects are not limited to one country, but the shockwave is felt throughout the world.
Recently, in a press release, the World Bank predicted that 2021 would see record-breaking poverty rates. Dwelling into details, the same report found that the pandemic was set to push “an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year.” As a result, this trend would lead to around 150 million suffering with their expenses depending on the severity of the virus. One thing is clear, the virus is as unpredictable as it can be fatal, which is why it becomes essential that these numbers aren’t ignored.
Across the world, governments are torn between helping their people or using money to procure vaccines for the country. For example, turning towards America wherein an article by Stephen Skyes informs us that a whopping 8 million slipped into poverty rates. Such a phenomenon followed after early coronavirus relief ended. As the federal government mulls over the best way to tackle this stimulus package, millions more continue to fall to the monster of poverty.
What’s ironic is that prior to this pandemic, poverty rates were in decline. For one, a report by the U.S Census Bureau found that the official poverty rate had decreased for the fifth consecutive year in 2019, to 10.5 percent,. These are the lowest they’ve even been since estimates were first published back in 1959.
Now a grim picture is set in America as families across the country work arduously to make ends meet.
Without the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the CARES Act, which provided Americans with a one-time stimulus check of around $1,200 and unemployed workers an extra $600 each week, experts at Columbia University warn of a crisis within a crisis: the poverty one. To solve this, collected action needs to be taken. If it isn’t, then the future is looking quite bleak at present.
The sad part is, we’re not even at the end of it. This turmoil created by the pandemic will continue to have lasting effects, even with vaccine distribution. Fact of the matter is that some change needs to be brought forth- and soon. Without it, the world could plunge into “trigger cycles of higher income inequality, lower social mobility among the vulnerable, and lower resilience to future shocks.” (The World bank.) Governments need to prioritize aiding citizens stuck in this tirade of poverty, in a world where children go to bed hungry hanging onto morsels from the night before. Now, that kind of world is a dark one.
So, the question is, do we want to live in a world plagued by increasing poverty?
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