Unequal economic progress

The World Bank said in a report released last week that the poverty rate in Pakistan stood at 40.5 per cent. That means about 100 million out of 240m plus Pakistanis are living on less than $3.65 per day as per the purchasing power parity of 2017. In simple words, 100m Pakistanis cannot use their daily income to buy today with what they could have bought with $3.65 in 2017. Hence, they are considered poor. At the current exchange rate, $3.65 roughly equals Rs1,000. One can only imagine what goods or services a Pakistani citizen could buy with this amount in a day, or what kind of life an individual earning Rs30,000 per month can live in today’s Pakistan. Pakistan has a long way to go to reduce this huge incidence of poverty. Social safety nets, like the Benazir Income Support Programme, are helpful in taking care of extremely poor people whose daily income is currently below $2.15, or a little over 600 Pakistani rupees.