COVID-19 and the country’s national lockdown has pushed 2.3 million out of the middle class category to swell the ranks of the poor by more than 7.3 million.
This is according to an analysis of figures from the National Income Dynamics Survey (NIDS) and the Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, performed by the University of Cape Town Liberty Institute of Strategic Marketing.
The survey has been performed among up to 40 000 individuals every two to three years since 2008, with the latest focusing specifically on the impact of COVID-19 on employment, household income and levels of hunger.
Earlier in the lockdown, it found that 3 million people who received an income in February, did not do so in April, the first full month of the hard lockdown.
The shift in earnings category may have been precipitated by the poor economic performance that preceded the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was likely
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