The rate of poverty in Latin America fell to 29% in 2022, which is equivalent to 181 million people and is 1.2% lower than the level recorded before the pandemic, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean revealed this Thursday (ECLAC).
The extreme poverty rate also fell to 11.2% of the population (70 million people), remaining at similar levels to 2019, indicated in a new edition of the ‘Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean’ report, the agency dependent on the UN, based in Santiago de Chile.
“Although we highlight the reduction of poverty in 2022, there is no reason to celebrate. More than 180 million people in our region do not have sufficient income to cover their basic needs and, among them, 70 million do not have income to purchase a basic food basket.“said the Executive Secretary of the ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
The organization also warned that the regional GDP growth rate expected for 2023 “does not allow us to foresee new improvements in poverty for this year”.
Latin America, the most unequal region in the world and the most affected by the pandemic, grew by 6.9% in 2021, as a rebound after the 6.8% collapse recorded in 2020, the largest recession in 120 years.
The slowdown in the region began in the second half of 2022, which closed with an estimated growth of 3.8%, according to ECLAC. For this year, the organization forecasts an expansion of 1.7% and for 2024 of 1.5%.
The report presented this Thursday indicates that, although an improvement is observed in certain dimensions of the labor markets between 2020 and 2022, “The region is experiencing a crisis in slow motion in terms of labor inclusion, understood not only as job insertion but also as the conditions under which employment is accessed.”.
“Of the universe of 292 million employed people in the region, 1 in 2 are in informal jobs, close to a fifth live in poverty, 4 in 10 have labor incomes below the minimum wage and half do not contribute to the pension systems”, notes the document.
In 2022, a total of 54.2 million households (39% of the total) depended exclusively on informal employment in the region, according to the ECLAC.
“The region remains mired in a double structural trap of low growth and high levels of poverty and inequality. Countries must move from labor insertion to labor inclusion, the axis of inclusive social development“, he pointed Salazar-Xirinachs.
But, he added, “Labor inclusion requires high and sustained economic growth”.
The report also revealed that income inequality decreased in 2022 to levels lower than those recorded in 2019, although it warned that it remains “very high.”
The highest income decile in Latin America receives an income that is equivalent to 21 times that of the lowest income decile and the wealth of only 105 people represented almost 9% of the regional total in 2021, according to the ECLAC.
Source: Gestion
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