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Did Lockdowns Push 100 Million People Into Extreme Poverty?

by Noah Carl
14 August 2021 10:07 AM

Gathering data on extreme poverty is difficult at the best of times, but it’s doubly harder (or well-nigh impossible) during a pandemic. Such data are typically collected via face-to-face household surveys, but these were put on hold last year.

In a study of 122 national statistical offices carried out in May of 2020, the World Bank found that 69% had completely stopped collecting data via face-to-face surveys, and a further 27% had partly stopped (leaving only 4% that had continued with normal data collection).

We therefore don’t yet have good data on the effect of the pandemic on extreme poverty. However, there are ways of estimating how many people are in poverty, using data from national accounts (i.e., GDP per capita). These data are not collected via face-to-face surveys, so it has still been possible to obtain them during the pandemic.

In order to estimate (or ‘nowcast’) the number of people in poverty, the World Bank takes the last year for which the full income distribution was known, and then shifts it left or right, depending how much GDP per capita grew between that year and the current year. (See the diagram on p.5 here.)

Using this method, World Bank researchers calculate that 97 million people fell into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic. In the chart below, 97 million is equal to the difference between 732 million (the estimated number of people in extreme poverty) and 635 million (the expected number).

This “represents a historically unprecedented increase in global poverty”. Note that the increase was concentrated in the Middle East, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Interestingly, the World Bank projects that there will be 21 million fewer people in extreme poverty in 2021. This represents a year-on-year change of –2.9%, which is approximately the same as the annual declines observed in the years before the pandemic.

This decrease in extreme poverty is somewhat unexpected, given that 2021 has seen some of the largest epidemics in low and middle-income countries. “Would these developments not suggest,” the researchers ask, “that poverty is bound to increase further in 2021?”

So why is poverty projected to decline? The researchers suggest that the lifting of lockdown measures may be a factor. In 2020, many developing countries responded to the pandemic by locking down major parts of their economy.

“These lockdowns decreased incomes and employment, causing an increase in extreme poverty,” say the researchers. Yet in 2021 “the appetite for lockdowns has been smaller”. As a matter of fact, the difference in the policy response between 2020 and 2021 is reflected in the Oxford Blavatnik School’s Stringency Index.

“In May 2020, on average 25 out of 27 low-income countries in OxCGRT had a stringency index value higher than 50, whereas in May 2021, on average 10 low-income countries crossed that threshold.”

Of course, lockdowns may not account for all of the 97 million people pushed into extreme poverty last year. But it’s plausible that they account for some. Even 50 million would be a massive figure to add to the costs side of the ledger.

Tags: Lockdown harmsPovertyWorld Bank

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60 Comments
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JayBee
JayBee
3 years ago

“So why is poverty projected to decline? The researchers suggest that the lifting of lockdown measures may be a factor. In 2020, many developing countries responded to the pandemic by locking down major parts of their economy.
“These lockdowns decreased incomes and employment, causing an increase in extreme poverty.””

It’s overwhelmingly been the WESTERN Lockdowns that pushed these countries and people back into poverty and also killed millions there.
So Britons have the blood of around 3% of them on their hand.
So 3 million as per this, likely severely understated, figure.
But hey, it’s just young, brown people, so if it gives 1 white grandpa another month in a care home where he is mistreated to death anyway, that’s worth it.
Particularly for the now in truth racist ‘ethics’ professors and other left green do-gooders over here.

Last edited 3 years ago by JayBee
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-9
milesahead
milesahead
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Not Britons, but the British ‘elite’. Ordinary Britons have been, by-and-large, brainwashed via incessant psy-ops, conveyed by the MSM lackies.

41
0
Hester
Hester
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

Ignorance is no defence, we pay for education through taxes until 18 in this country, it does not take a genius to recognise shutting down business, locking people up for close to 2 years results in extreme poverty for those already in need. Anyone who has supported Lockdowns, passports, and the cocophony of crap that has gone along with this is complicit.

51
-6
J4mes
J4mes
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Would you blame a lab monkey for following orders to avoid being punished? As infuriating covidians are, they are victims of mass manipulation that has gone on for decades and has climaxed with the covid fraud. As a nation we’ve been psychologically tenderised.

19
-1
Mike Durrans
Mike Durrans
3 years ago
Reply to  J4mes

Less of the “we” lad! Actually a lot have been hardened, thankfully. But what is surprising is the nunber of morons still covering their face with muzzles

5
-3
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

And not just the British elite: The Chinese elite, the Italian elite, the French elite, the …

10
0
Monro
Monro
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

‘The judges at Nuremberg rejected the “following orders” defense. They said that when an individual follows an order that is illegal under international law, he is responsible for that choice, except under certain circumstances. For instance, if the individual could prove that he was ignorant of the fact that the order was illegal, he would not be responsible. But the judges at Nuremberg maintained that it would have been impossible for members of Einsatzgruppen not to know that murdering civilians was both illegal and immoral.’

https://www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-10/obeying-orders

Notice how early Melinda Gates got in her defence:

‘You can project out and think about what a pandemic might be like or look like, but until you live through it, it’s pretty hard to know what the reality will be like. So I think we predicted quite well that, depending on what the disease was, it could spread very, very, very quickly. The spread did not surprise us.

“What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts…’

04 Dec 2020

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/melinda-gates-economic-impacts-pandemic/

Then she filed for divorce……

And she has the best lawyers in town advising her……..

16
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Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

And besides, we never voted for these policies, they were never put to us in a general election.

7
0
Mike Durrans
Mike Durrans
3 years ago
Reply to  milesahead

They have failed with a lot of people- thankfully!

2
-1
DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

Ignorance isint it, what did they think would happen.

8
0
Rowan
Rowan
3 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Allowing themselves to be brainwashed, is as you suggest, no excuse. Ordinary Brits are accordingly also culpable and have blood on their hands.

14
-2
Norman
Norman
3 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Do you think brainwashing is a voluntary activity? What is worrying is people like you who want to blame people who are powerless to alter the outcome.

8
-7
Hester
Hester
3 years ago
Reply to  Norman

tell that to the blacks in South Africa who lived under Apartheid, tell that to the Muslims who are being extinguished in China, tell that to the Jews who endured the Nazi regime. If it wasn’t for the “Good people” who stood by and did nothing these things would never happen

22
-7
Norman
Norman
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Yes, people do stand by and these things do happen do happen. I think brutality has more to do with it in the cases you mention – most people will compromise when faced with losing their lives.
The key difference in Britain is that the pschological campaign of misinformation has terrified people that they will lose their lives if they don’t comply. The driver is the same – people do not want to lose their lives and don’t want to see their relatives suffer and die. It is nothing to do with good or bad people.
Out of interest, how are you going about standing up to it?

8
0
Hester
Hester
3 years ago
Reply to  Norman

Not had the injection, financially supporting a couple of test cases, I write reularly, I do not wear masks, I support those who are suffering depression and are mentally unwell as a result. I have writtent to my member of Parliament who happens to be head of the vaccine programme regularly even though I know that its a pointless exercise, and I help Big brother watch. I try every day to get people to see through the madness. I will not see others persecuted for disobeying stupid laws.

26
-6
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

I also go along to some of the local anti-lockdown protest every few weeks, the “a stand in the park” movement advertises some locations. I just wish I had done something worthwhile on day one or two of this, when it could have had so much more effect than it does on a public which has come to view being brainwashed as normality. A march on March 24th 2020 would have done a lot of good.

7
0
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago
Reply to  Norman

Not powerless, the wider British public could and should have done mroe to fight back, and had we sceptics had the courage and organisational ability at the very start we should have been fighting back then too and setting an exmaple for our country to copy. We shouldn’t really be demonising all those brainwashed, somehow we need to be getting them on our side, betetr late than never.

7
0
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago
Reply to  OnceIWasARemainer

The victims of tyranny so often do not recognise it.

9
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Anyway it was widely flagged as an inevitable consequence of government responses around the world.

8
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

We certainly know who has been getting rich

New side effects from Pfizer and Moderna vaccines include kidney inflammation, renal disorders and skin reactions
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-08-12-new-side-effects-from-covid-vaccines-include-kidney-inflammation-renal-disorders-skin-reactions.html

Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.

Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

7
-1
J4mes
J4mes
3 years ago
Reply to  JayBee

How on Earth did this get to be old whitey’s fault yet again? You talk about racist professors while displaying crass racism yourself.

6
-1
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

Ivermectin Wins in India
News of India’s defeat of the Delta variant should be common knowledge. It is just about as obvious as the nose on one’s face. It is so clear when one looks at the graphs that no one can deny it.https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/indias-ivermectin-blackout

16
0
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Yes, noone can deny it – but,when challenged, they will anyway!

6
0
Smelly Melly
Smelly Melly
3 years ago

China has closed down its second largest port as 1 person has tested positive. This will have impacts on global trade.

3
0
loopDloop
loopDloop
3 years ago

Well sure 100 million more people in the third world plunged into poverty, but that’s a small price to pay to protect us in the first world from a bad case of the sniffles. /sarc off

18
0
cloud6
cloud6
3 years ago

Here is another horrible statistic… In 2021 5.5 million people died of starvation ( worldwide 7 months). UK figures are hard to come by or non-existent.

4
0
chris c
chris c
3 years ago
Reply to  cloud6

Extreme poverty will decrease when they starve to death.

0
0
mishmash
mishmash
3 years ago

Yes, obviously.

4
0
Emmerich
Emmerich
3 years ago

This might be the wrong topic to ask this but I was wondering if anyone knows if it’s actually legal for the British government to mandate vaccines, like they’re doing in New York and California? I’ve heard that the laws here are basically ‘my body, my choice’, does this apply to employers as well?

4
0
Catee
Catee
3 years ago
Reply to  Emmerich

I think the only way to find out is people being sacked or forced to leave their employment because they have refused the vaccine and then taking the employers to tribunal for either unfair or constructive dismissal. I suspect there are quite a few such cases in the pipeline.

7
0
tom171uk
tom171uk
3 years ago
Reply to  Emmerich

Since they make the law I expect it is legal. If it is not, they would soon pass a law to ensure it is.

0
0
Norman
Norman
3 years ago

I would have thought it obvious that if you confine everyone to their homes then those who earn their income from manual jobs will not be able to perform them. This country tried to mitigate some of the effects by additional government largesse, but I can’t imagine many of the less well developed countries doing this.
It is a shame (no, a disgrace) that our “elite” failed to understand or acknowledge the fact.

Last edited 3 years ago by For a fist full of roubles
14
0
PartyTime
PartyTime
3 years ago
Reply to  Norman

The lockdowns in the poorest countries were shorter for those reasons, although they were quite damaging enough, with large increases in poverty-related child malnutrition across sub-Saharan Africa. What they did do to maintain the theatre, even in those countries, was to keep the schools closed for most of the year. This had a disastrous effect on public health, because the blood transfusion services in Africa tend to collect from schools (this makes some sense as most hospital blood in Africa is used for small children) so the hospital blood supplies disappeared.

3
0
Hester
Hester
3 years ago

Depopulation achieved, objective achieved, World Governments and Central Banks must be very happy. You will own nothing and be happy why? because a bunch of very rich people have told you so.

14
-1
Norman
Norman
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Depopulation? – the overall death rates world wide are no higher than the standard death rates just a few years back, meanwhile breeding is going on apace.
According to Worldometer there are already 125,000 more people on the planet than yesterday. It has gone up by 30 since I started typing this.

4
0
Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  Norman

Overpopulation will finish off the human race pdq. Breeding to death. Covvie is as irrelevant to the real threat as the nonsensical ‘green’ policies the ecozombies gibber about.

2
0
Paul B
Paul B
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Watching Avengers again, Thanos had it wrong, half of all life gone, that would be reproduced with a few generations, probably less than 100 years. He needed to go for 99% to really make a difference.

Isn’t there a stat something like more people exist today than have lived and died in the whole of human history added together.

2
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

Vaccine Expert Vanden Bossche Calls For “Immediate Halt” To Vaccinations, Says They Encourage “Escape Mutant” Variants
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/vaccine-expert-vanden-bossche-calls-immediate-halt-vaccinations-says-it-encourages-variants

6
0
BJs Brain is Missing
BJs Brain is Missing
3 years ago

Never, ever, forget the crooks and their accomplices who have brought all this destruction and misery into being. They must be held accountable and face-up to the consequences of their actions. Not one can be allowed to get away with it – not one.

The list is long.

Politicians
Scientists
CEOs
Bankers / Money Changers
Celebrities
Actors / Actresses
Show Business / Holywood
Police
Military
Judiciary
‘Spiritual Leaders’
Social Media
Mainstream Media
University Professors
Academics
SAGE

And so forth…

Last edited 3 years ago by BJs Brain is Missing
25
0
Catee
Catee
3 years ago
Reply to  BJs Brain is Missing

You missed out the medical profession who have been just as complicit, even more so when it comes to vaccinating people without ‘informed consent’.

30
0
Hester
Hester
3 years ago
Reply to  BJs Brain is Missing

Neil Ferguson

16
0
Annie
Annie
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Worst of the lot. Dr Imaginary Death.

2
0
RTSC
RTSC
3 years ago
Reply to  BJs Brain is Missing

Correct. Never forget ….. and just as important, never forgive. Especially when it comes to voting.

1
0
Paul B
Paul B
3 years ago

Some resistance at least, and a catchy drum beat to boot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mtffk-lH9Q

3
0
OnceIWasARemainer
OnceIWasARemainer
3 years ago

I’m not sure what change other than lockdowns being introduced could have caused that surge in poverty. certainly not the disease itself, a mild inconvenience which would go unnoticed against malaria and typhoid in the poorest parts of the world (where few people have lived to be old enough to be covid vulnerable anyway*).

*Life expectancy has, until these lockdosn began one suspects, being making real improvements in the poorest countries, but they were in bad enough states decades ago that even if people now might have a life expectancy enough to get old and vulnerable, there aren’t yet many people there of advanced age.

4
0
Hester
Hester
3 years ago

seen the latest? My firend predicted this and she has been proved to be 100 percent correct.
Headline in the Terrorgraph
Pregnant Carrie Johnson feeling great after second vaccine dose.

Clearly even the unborn child does not get to escape from the Mengele messings of Johnson. I wonder when Wilf will be paraded out for the promotion of the experimental drug on Children.
What sort of woman is Carrie Johnson that espouses the taking of an experimental drug that has not been tested on pregnant women, and for which there are no data on the effects of the child. She is clearly more concerned with her position and future income streams of her and her husband than she is about Pregnant women, the foetus and children. Not exactly the role model one wants for ideal motherhood is it?

16
0
Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

Assuming she really had it, that is. I have my doubts.

22
0
RTSC
RTSC
3 years ago
Reply to  Hester

A saline jab never killed anyone.

4
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

FOI Look at the figures!

NHS_FOI.jpg
12
0
Hypatia
Hypatia
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Goodness me! Interesting.

6
0
Dormouse
Dormouse
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Table 3 is interesting. The monthly combined admissions from March onwards are greater than Jan and Feb.

4
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Interesting indeed – especially on the massive scale of abandonment of in-patient treatment. Gives the lie to the idea that everyone working in hospital was snowed under.

The vaccine stats need treating with caution: bear in mind that COVID morbidity and mortality follows the non-COVID age pattern, and that the vulnerable groups were targeted for vaccination first. In other words, older people are both more likely to enter hospital or die there, and to have been vaccinated. One would need fuller data to tease out the effects of vaccination on health.

Likewise (playing devil’s advocate to avoid ending up looking foolish) the greater level of admissions now may be a sign of the hospital opening up for business again rather than anything else.

4
0
amanuensis
amanuensis
3 years ago

The global economic impact of the West’s covid response hasn’t really begun yet.

Although if poverty is only measured relative to the GDP of Western countries then it might be that (relative) global poverty will decrease in the years to come.

4
0
Tenchy
Tenchy
3 years ago

Anyone know where the favela in the photo is located? Rio?

0
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

#COVID19 #covidnsw #nswlockdown #COVID19Aus #COVID19Vic #victorialockdown

Last edited 3 years ago by thinkcriticall
0
0
thinkcriticall
thinkcriticall
3 years ago

#COVID19 #covidnsw #nswlockdown #COVID19Aus #COVID19Vic #victorialockdown
Nation Wide Rallies
All Capital Cities
12PM August 21 2021
We Will Rise For Peace, Freedom & Human Rights.

Screenshot 2021-08-14 at 21-54-50 Craig Havenaar 🇦🇺 on Twitter.png
1
0
Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
3 years ago
Reply to  thinkcriticall

Augsut 28 surely? Or maybe that’s a different one…

0
0
Hugh
Hugh
3 years ago

Did lockdowns push 100m into extreme poverty? According to my lockdown diary from 24/08/2020, “Lockdown in Kenya has left millions hungry; Kenyans hunting giraffes for food; Teenage girls in Kenya doing bad things for food”.

More than likely 100m have been pushed into extreme poverty. And don’t forget, the devastation to Krnya’s vital flower trade because of the collapse in demand during the UK’s lockdown hit Kenya very hard.. The msm, and not least the Guardian, should be ashamed of supporting these genocidal policies for a bug demonstrably within the range of a bad flu season. Talk about ‘bad science’, bunch of stuffing sellouts.

Last edited 3 years ago by Hugh
6
0
Mike Durrans
Mike Durrans
3 years ago

So called lockdown did not push anybody into so called poverty. It is always mismanagement of one budget. I actually finish up with a lot more money in the bank- shops that required muzzles did not get my custom- simple!

0
0
Pavlov Bellwether
Pavlov Bellwether
3 years ago

This needs to stop now. Don’t comply. Ditch the masks. FIGHT. BACK. BETTER. Updated useful information, resources and links: https://www.LCAHub.org/

8
0

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