Nearly 32 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean, equivalent to 201 million people, will live in poverty at the end of this year, of which 82 million (13.1 percent) will be in extreme poverty, revealed this UN Thursday.
“The projected levels of extreme poverty in 2022 represent a setback of a quarter of a century for the region“, warns the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), a regional institution of the United Nations.
“The cascade of external shocks, the slowdown in economic growth, the weak recovery in employment and rising inflation deepen and prolong the social crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean“, indicated the executive secretary of the institution, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs.
After a sharp increase in poverty and a slight increase in income inequality in 2020 due to the pandemic, in 2021 there was a reduction in the rates of poverty and extreme povertybut it was not enough to reverse the negative effects of the pandemic crisis, according to the Social Panorama of Latin America and the Caribbean 2022 report.
The numbers indicate that, by the end of this year, 15 million more people will be in povertycompared to the situation prior to the pandemic, and that the number of people in extreme poverty will be 12 million higher than in 2019.
Latin America, the region most affected by the pandemicit grew 6.9% in 2021, after the 6.8% plunge registered in 2020, the biggest recession in 120 years.
For 2022, ECLAC projects growth of 3.2%, although it foresees a slowdown of 1.4% in 2023.
Projected unemployment for this year represents a 22-year setback and It will especially affect women.Therefore, unemployment grows from 9.5% in 2019 to 11.6% in 2022.
The incidence of poverty is higher in some population groups: more than 45% of children and adolescents live without resources and the rate is higher in women between 20 and 59 years than in men in all the countries of the region.
Likewise, poverty is considerably higher in the indigenous or Afro-descendant population, reveals the document.
Latin America and the Caribbean also suffered the worst effect in terms of education (70 weeks of middle school confinement, compared to 41 weeks in the rest of the world), aggravating pre-existing inequalities in access, inclusion and quality of education, second The report.
The data from the report indicate that in Latin America the percentage of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who neither study nor work for pay increased from 22.3% in 2019 to 28.7% in 2020, especially affecting young women.
Source: Observadora
