The coronavirus
lockdown began, the first impulse was to search for historical analogies—1914,
1929, 1941? As the weeks have ground on, what has come ever more to the fore is
the historical novelty of the shock that we are living through. The economy is
currently in something akin to free fall. If it were to continue to contract at
its current pace, 12 months from now GDP would be one-third lower than at the
beginning of 2020. That is a rate of shrinkage four times faster than during
the Great Depression of the 1930s. There has never been a crash landing like
this before. There is something new under the sun. And it is horrifying.
As recently as
five weeks ago, at the beginning of March, U.S. unemployment was at record lows.
By the end of March, it had surged to somewhere around 13 percent. That is the
highest number recorded since World War II. We don’t know the precise figure
because our system of unemployment registration was not built to track an
increase at this speed. On successive Thursdays, the number of those making
initial filings for unemployment insurance has surged first to 3.3 million,
then 6.6 million, and now by another 6.6 million. At the current rate, as the
economist Justin Wolfers pointed out in the New York Times, U.S. unemployment
is rising at nearly 0.5 percent per day. It is no longer unimaginable that the
overall unemployment rate could reach 30 percent by the summer.
More than 140m migrant workers have lost jobs since
the lockdown began and now face destitution.Gopal Das has laboured on construction sites
in Mumbai for
nearly two decades, helping build the office
towers of India’s
bustling financial capital.
Though the rural
migrant’s average monthly earnings were just Rs10,000 ($133), most was sent home
to support his wife,
two teenage children and ageing
parents in the impoverished state of Bihar.
He has just one goal now: escape the city and get
back to his village and family as soon as possible. Once there, he says, he will not
think of returning to the city
for at least
a year — no
matter how tough conditions are at home.
“I will not put myself
through such humiliation again,” he says. “I had never
slept on an empty stomach
in Mumbai before.
But the curfew
made me realise, ‘the city
doesn’t care’.”
Mr Das’s ordeal
is typical of the tribulations that India’s estimated 170m financially fragile,
blue- collar and gig economy workers have endured since late March, when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi overnight imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns
to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Life has never
been easy for India’s vast army of working poor — self-employed and casual labourers
who typically work on short-term contracts, with little security. But with toil
and frugality, they and their families have managed to survive. Now, though,
with economic activity at a standstill, most have seen their incomes collapse
to zero. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) estimates about
140m people have lost jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 26 per cent
from 8 per cent before the crisis.
He has just one goal now: escape the city and get
back to his village and family as soon as possible. Once there, he says, he will not
think of returning to the city
for at least
a year — no
matter how tough conditions are at home.
“I will not put myself
through such humiliation again,” he says. “I had never
slept on an empty stomach
in Mumbai before.
But the curfew
made me realise, ‘the city
doesn’t care’.”
Mr Das’s ordeal
is typical of the tribulations that India’s estimated 170m financially fragile,
blue- collar and gig economy workers have endured since late March, when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi overnight imposed one of the world’s strictest lockdowns
to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Life has never
been easy for India’s vast army of working poor — self-employed and casual labourers
who typically work on short-term contracts, with little security. But with toil
and frugality, they and their families have managed to survive. Now, though,
with economic activity at a standstill, most have seen their incomes collapse
to zero. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE) estimates about 140m
people have lost jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 26 per cent from 8
per cent before the crisis.
Indian workers — and those
who depend on them — are not alone in their hardship. Shutdowns to control the deadly pathogen
have sparked food
riots in countries such as South
Africa and fuelled protests
elsewhere, including Lebanon. The UN warned
last week that
the world faced
a “hunger pandemic”, with millions facing starvation.
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ReplyDeleteNice article
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