Prioritising reduction of poverty, income gap

The claim that the economy had been experiencing an era of remarkable growth during the past decades is gradually proving to be hollow as the so-called growth totally failed to create enough employment opportunities. Economists and experts prefer to call it jobless growth. Worse, the so-called growth hype actually masked surging poverty, particularly over the past three years. A recent study by the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC), a local non-profit research and policy advocacy group, has shown that the rate of poverty in Bangladesh increased to 28 per cent in 2025 from 18.7 per cent in 2022. Again, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty, too, has risen to 9.35 per cent in 2025 whereas three years ago it was 5.6 per cent. That means one in every four persons in the country lives below the poverty line and one in every ten person lives in extreme poverty. Some 18 per cent of the population now above the poverty line, on the other hand, according to the PPRC study, are at constant risk of falling below the poverty line at the slightest change in the economic situation for the worse. How to explain this strange reversal of poverty situation when the decade between 2000 and 2010 saw a steady and uniform decline in the poverty rate?

The recent reports of reversal of the poverty reduction trend, according to experts are rooted in five vulnerabilities, namely, prevalence of chronic illness, a disproportionately large share of the extreme poor in the female-headed households, rising household debt, food insecurity and inadequate sanitation. These are obviously the factors that tend to push more of the vulnerable ones below the poverty line, or keep those already poor trapped in that condition. Since poverty-stricken families cannot send their children to school, that reality further contributes to what experts term 'generational poverty'. That means, if urgent measures are not taken to lift such families out of poverty, their next generations risk remaining entrapped in poverty.

The interim government itself cannot avoid its responsibility in this regard as it has failed to include poverty reduction as one of its reform agenda. So, there is a reason to believe that the situation of poverty and joblessness as reflected in these study data may be just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, inequalities are further widening in society at a higher rate than before thanks to ever-rising cost of living. The situation is getting further compounded by the income level of middle and lower middle income segments of the population remaining stagnated. The widening income gap is, according to some experts, is affecting the rural landscape more than the urban one. Thus the situation of the low and very low income segments of the population living in urban and rural conditions becomes worse.

All these development definitely militate against any illusion of growth or well-being of the majority segment of the population. The situation calls for urgent measures to ensure that those in extreme poverty can at least have food support from the government while the vulnerable section may also benefit from similar government interventions aimed at securing them from falling into extreme poverty. Creation of favourable conditions by the government to help stimulate private sector growth will generate jobs in order to address the rising level of unemployment.