An Oct. 7 World Bank press release offers that institution’s estimate that in 2020, worldwide extreme poverty will rise for the first time in 20 years. They expect the full effects of the pandemic to push an additional 88-115 million people into poverty this year, rising to a total of 150 million by 2021. Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.90 per day. “The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4% of the world’s population to fall into extreme poverty,” said World Bank Group President David Malpass. The average global income of the lower 40% of the population is expected not to see growth over 2019 through 2021.
The direct effects of the disease’s mortality and morbidity come along with the immense social costs of measures taken to arrest its spread, which, due to insufficient testing and tracing and a poor initial ability to treat patients, have often taken the form of extremely broad measures.
Not mentioned by the World Bank is the enormous concentration of wealth among a very small portion of the planet’s population, due to the financial bailouts passed under the guise of, or as components of, coronavirus relief. This exacerbation of an already-worsening trend will not be reversed simply by defeating the pandemic. International cooperation to achieve a new economic system in the world, with particular need in the trans-Atlantic world, can unlock a generation of intense economic development, to make poverty eradication a success and to develop the new technologies and scientific breakthroughs on which our future growth will depend.
