Inequality in wealth and source of income are more than just economic concepts. They also influence school and fitness outcomes, poverty levels, employment and unemployment rates, opportunities, choices, and ultimately happiness. Lately, several reports have investigated the effect of COVID-19 on various segments of society regionally, domestically, and abroad. They demonstrate how restrictions and lockdowns during the pandemic have exacerbated pre-existing disparities in the source of income and wealth.
A new report from Oxfam and the Development Finance Institution (DFI) found that top governments have failed to take mandatory measures to tackle the explosion of inequality caused by COVID-19. Others have let billionaires and big business get away with record profits.
The scenario calls for an integrated and inclusive public policy to address other vulnerable people. The Oxfam-FDHA report and the 2022 Action Index to Reduce Inequality (CRI), based on what governments have done to close the gap between rich and poor, may simply be a starting point. It is the first in-depth investigation of official policies and movements to address inequality that reviews expenditures, fiscal policies, and labor policies and movements for the first two years of the pandemic from 2020 to 2022 in 161 countries.
The IRC 2022 indicates that 70% of countries have reduced their share of spending on education, while two-thirds have failed to increase the minimum wage over gross domestic product (GDP). In addition, 95% of countries have not increased taxes on Americans and wealthier companies.
Remember Oxfam’s report published in May, “Profit from the Pain,” which said the COVID-19 pandemic produces a new billionaire every 30 hours, while every 33 hours it can push other people nearly ten thousand rupees. to extreme poverty this year. By 2022, 19. 8 million more people will live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank, reversing two decades of progress. According to another Oxfam estimate based on World Bank data, another 6. 5 million people may be pushed into extreme poverty this year due to emerging food costs around the world. This would bring the total number of other people most likely to excessively deficient to 26. 3 crore rupees.
Even before the pandemic, the world was already very unequal. But the inequality hole widened after 2019 due to a lack of policy measures, a failure that hurts the poor the most. Unless governments and the outside network act urgently, the sharp rise in inequality and poverty due to the pandemic will soon be permanent, and governments will waste a decade fighting it.
The IRC report shows that top governments have failed to mitigate the damaging rise in inequality, the worst global fitness emergency in a century. Half of low- and lower-middle-income countries have noticed that their percentage of fitness spending has declined because of the pandemic. K-shaped recovery is the issue of verbal exchange in the city, necessarily means that recovery will also be uneven. It is a warning to politicians and economists that poorer regions and others will suffer the most and will be the worst even if the speed of economic recovery accelerates.
The IRC makes it clear that governments that focus on 3 key policy spaces (social spending, taxes and labour rights) can triumph over the challenge of inequality. There is ample evidence that vigorous progressive action through governments in those spaces can particularly decrease inequality. However, despite India’s marginal gains in reducing inequality during the pandemic (a six-point increase from position 129 in 2020), this is basically due to signals quantifying the effect of government spending and taxes on reducing inequality. In fact, its gains are due to the fact that India is among the ten fund spenders on public services, as it ranks 157th on the index.
India is also lagging behind in spending on fitness, education and social security. It has climbed six places in the rankings and still ranks last in fitness spending. That’s down two spots to 157th position since 2020, making it the fifth-largest spender on fitness.
India slightly reduced its spending on fitness between 2019 and 2021, an unprecedented fitness crisis, a widely criticized resolution. The government’s reaction to COVID-19 aside, it unfortunately continues to forget about much-needed innovations in fitness care. Health spending in India accounts for 3. 64% of total spending, the lowest among the BRICS and neighboring countries. In South Asia, Pakistan spends 4. 3 percent of its total spending on physical care, Bangladesh 5. 9 percent, Sri Lanka 5. 88 percent and Nepal 7. 8 percent.
One of the most alarming facets of the report is that it reclassifies India as a national minimum wage country. It fell 73 places in minimum wage ratings and is now on the list of 12 countries in the report (including Bahrain, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Oman, Singapore, South Sudan, Saint Lucia, Tonga and Tuvalu) where the “implementation of a national minimum wage has stalled” since 2020.
Despite a huge tax burden, 143 out of 161 countries have frozen tax rates for the wealthiest and 11 have cut them.
A mere six-place improvement in IRC ratings for India is not particularly impressive, seen globally. Countries with a lower GDP than India have done more to address COVID-19 inequality. Despite its fragility, Tajikistan rose 37 places, Maldives rose 33 puts, Bhutan rose 30 puts and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) rose 19 puts.
It is difficult to sustain the expansion while inequality continues to rise. India is now the fifth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, yet 19. 3% of its young people are wasted, the highest rate in the world. Development will have to be limited only to GDP expansion. The GDP fetishism of neoliberal policymakers has underpinned the widening of the inequality gap. Inequality is not herbalism but fabricated, so it is time to reconsider the appropriate policy measures to counter it.
Atman Shah is Assistant Professor of Economics at St. Xavier’s College (autonomous), Ahmedabad, and Dipak Chaudhari is Assistant Professor of Economics at Abhinav College, Bhayandar (E), Mumbai. Reviews are personal.
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