While the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns brought our economy to a grinding halt, leading to much suffering for people across the nation, an often overlooked aspect of these lockdowns has been the shocking numbers of people it has pushed into becoming the “new poor.” According to several surveys carried out by the Power and Participation Research Centre and the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, the second wave of lockdowns in the country brought an estimated 32.4 million people into poverty for the first time.
While the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns brought our economy to a grinding halt, leading to much suffering for people across the nation, an often overlooked aspect of these lockdowns has been the shocking numbers of people it has pushed into becoming the “new poor.” According to several surveys carried out by the Power and Participation Research Centre and the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development, the second wave of lockdowns in the country brought an estimated 32.4 million people into poverty for the first time.
