“Historic highs in poverty” has made it to headlines once again, courtesy the rallies of Pakistan Democratic Movement, an alliance of eleven opposition parties. But neither the main constituents of that alliance nor the incumbent party, which has also made slogans on poverty in its time, has ever bothered to make poverty and unemployment estimates a robust annual (if not quarterly) exercise. Nor is public perception of the poor or poverty in general a widely debated subject in the media.
In Pakistan, like the case of middle class, it’s almost fashionable to call oneself as poor and struggling; be it those who eke out a loan to buy a 125-cc motorbike or a Mehran and also those who sport a Vitz; those who are fruit vendors or those who trade in timber in Karachi’s leading wood markets.
The economists, being economists, obviously have their own way of defining poverty. For instance, those living earning less than two dollars a day; or those receiving less than 60 percent of the median income.
Yet there are many in this country who staunchly believe that anyone who has access to three meals a day is not poor. This is a rather rudimentary concept of poverty for they fail to understand that poverty is a human concept and by virtue of it is more than just access to food. Afterall, a dog starving to death is not considered poor. Poverty, ergo, is more than just access to food; hence the growing emphasis on multidimensional poverty and/or cost of basic needs whose custodians in this country is a recently formed 14-member committee, and not an independent government body whose job should be to assess poverty at designated periods.
It would be quite amusing to see political parties battle over national and sub-national poverty estimates when the committee release those numbers. But that discussion is for another time. Whilst no measure of poverty is entirely satisfactory and different yardsticks naturally yield different results, it stands to reason that the subject of poverty, its estimates and its public perception of it ought to be a widely debated subject courtesy media and the academia.
It is rather unfortunate nay baffling that whilst political leaders and concerned citizens build their rhetoric on poverty, much like the subject of unemployment, the subject doesn’t invite as many surveys and public discourse. This smacks the rants and arm-chair analysis. (Is unemployment really Pakistan’s big issue? Sep 5, 2019)
Poverty is too important to be left to macroeconomists. By its very nature, it requires interdisciplinary debate and study; economics, politics, psychology, ethics, moral and political philosophy are all indispensable for anyone wanting to understand and assess poverty, and to do something about it.
For instance, it has been estimated that small time fruit vendors in certain Indian towns could significantly reduce their daily borrowing costs, and accordingly their daily profits, if they were to shun their consumption of just two cups of tea a day. This implies that the question of choice and moral responsibility cannot be ignored in the discourse of poverty and poverty alleviation.
Or consider the fact that using the concept of mental bandwidth, behavioral economists have found out that the poor suffer from weak cognitive bandwidth for they are too worried about daily challenges, which prevents them from taking common sense business or job decisions and thus arrest their ability to come out of poverty. This implies that behavioral considerations ought to be studied towards designing and assessing the likely effects of poverty alleviation policies.
Lastly, what is the popular perception of poor in Pakistan? That too is needed to be studied, both for better targeting economic endowments and for gaining better political mileage of anti-poverty policies. Here’s hoping that poverty, and unemployment will be more than just slogans in the days ahead.
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