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Poverty will increase in each of the Latin American countries this year, according to the three scenarios modeled by ECLAC, which in a report published today accounts for the impact of the coronavirus crisis on this matter. The agency anticipates that, in the worst case, the percentage of people in poverty at the regional level will go from 30.3% registered in 2019 to 35.5% in 2020, an average that includes the jump from 9.8% to 13.7% that would be experienced in Chile.
Although the pandemic causes havoc worldwide, when it comes to poverty, the situation is particularly complex at the Latin American level. The Covid-19 arrives “in a context of low growth and, above all, of high inequality and vulnerability, in which there are increasing trends in poverty and extreme poverty, a weakening of social cohesion and manifestations of popular discontent”, it is read in the report.
This last aspect is quite consistent with the national reality, which prior to the health emergency faced the worst social crisis in decades, which had already left its mark on economic activity. Thus, ECLAC anticipates that poverty would escalate this year to 11.9% in the most optimistic scenario and 12.7% in an intermediate situation.
In any case, with these numbers, the poverty observed at the national level is the least severe in Latin America, after Uruguay, which in the worst case scenario would see an increase from 2.9% to 5.7% this year. At the other extreme are Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, which would exceed the 50% rate, while Argentina appears on the average, which would see a jump from 26.7% to 35.3%.
“Loss of income affects above all the broad strata of the population that are in a situation of poverty and vulnerability, as well as people who work in activities more exposed to layoffs and salary reductions and, in general, in precarious working conditions ”, Highlights the organism.
In fact, things do not look better at the regional level when it comes to projections of extreme poverty, which increases from 11% to 14.2% this year in the worst case or the “high scenario” modeled by ECLAC. In Chile, this increase is from 1.4% to 2.6%.
recommendations
In light of the worrying estimates, ECLAC calls that “short, medium and long-term social protection measures to face the effects of the pandemic must consider the well-being of the entire population, especially that of groups experiencing multiple forms of exclusion and suffer more acutely from the impacts of the crisis ”. Considering the above, they maintain that “social protection and well-being must be seen with a perspective of universalism sensitive to differences, that is, taking into account the needs, shortcomings and discrimination of specific groups.”
In particular, the body led by Alicia Barcena proposes “that governments guarantee temporary monetary transfers to satisfy basic needs and sustain household consumption, which will be crucial to achieve a solid and relatively rapid recovery”.
In this framework, he comments that in Chile “workers who earned the minimum wage (301,000 Chilean pesos) in February 2020, will receive an additional sum of 59,200 pesos (70 dollars) and this measure is extended in a decreasing way to those who earn up to 384,363 pesos”. In addition to the above, they estimate that “this guaranteed minimum income, which was being managed before the health emergency as part of the responses to the social outbreak, will benefit 670,000 workers.”
On the other hand, ECLAC recommends, in general terms for the region, that the scope of the transfers “should be permanent, go beyond people in poverty and reach broad strata of the population that are very vulnerable to falling into it such as the low-income, non-poor and lower-middle strata ”.
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