April, 09 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Anna Ratcliff in UK | anna.ratcliff@oxfam.org | +44 779 699 3288 | @ratcliff_anna
Annie Thériault in Canada | annie.theriault@oxfam.org | +51 936 307 990 | @annietheri
Half a Billion People Could Be Pushed Into Poverty By Coronavirus, Warns Oxfam
The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic could push half a billion more people into poverty unless urgent action is taken to bail out developing countries, said Oxfam today. The agency is calling on world leaders to agree an 'Economic Rescue Package for All' to keep poor countries and poor communities afloat, ahead of key meetings of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G20 Finance Ministers' next week.
WASHINGTON
The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic could push half a billion more people into poverty unless urgent action is taken to bail out developing countries, said Oxfam today. The agency is calling on world leaders to agree an 'Economic Rescue Package for All' to keep poor countries and poor communities afloat, ahead of key meetings of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G20 Finance Ministers' next week.
Oxfam's new report 'Dignity Not Destitution' presents fresh analysis which suggests between six and eight percent of the global population could be forced into poverty as governments shut down entire economies to manage the spread of the virus. This could set back the fight against poverty by a decade, and as much as 30 years in some regions such as sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa. Over half the global population could be living in poverty in the aftermath of the pandemic.
The analysis, published today by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, was conducted by researchers at King's College London and the Australian National University.
An 'Emergency Rescue Package for All' would enable poor countries to provide cash grants to those who have lost their income and to bail out vulnerable small businesses. It would be paid for through a variety of measures including:
- The immediate cancellation of US$1 trillion worth of developing country debt payments in 2020. Cancelling Ghana's external debt payments in 2020 would enable the government to give a cash grant of $20 dollars a month to each of the country's 16 million children, disabled and elderly people for a period of six months.
- The creation of at least US$1 trillion in new international reserves, known as Special Drawing Rights, to dramatically increase the funds available to countries. This would give the Ethiopian government access to an additional $630 million -enough to increase their health spending by 45 percent.
Jose Maria Vera, Oxfam International Interim Executive Director said:
"The devastating economic fallout of the pandemic is being felt across the globe. But for poor people in poor countries who are already struggling to survive there are almost no safety nets to stop them falling into poverty. G20 Finance Ministers, the IMF and World Bank must give developing countries an immediate cash injection to help them bail out poor and vulnerable communities. They must cancel all developing country debt payments for 2020 and encourage other creditors to do the same, and issue at least US$1 trillion of Special Drawing Rights."
Existing inequalities dictate the economic impact of this crisis. The poorest workers in rich and poor nations are less likely to be in formal employment, enjoy labour protections such as sick pay, or be able to work from home. Globally, just one out of every five unemployed people have access to unemployment benefits. Two billion people work in the informal sector with no access to sick pay --the majority in poor countries where 90 percent of jobs are informal compared to just 18 percent in rich nations.
Women are on the front line of the coronavirus response and are likely to be hardest hit financially. Women make up 70 percent of health workers globally and provide 75 percent of unpaid care, looking after children, the sick and the elderly. Women are also more likely to be employed in poorly paid precarious jobs that are most at risk. More than one million Bangladeshi garment workers -80 percent of whom are women- have already been laid off or sent home without pay after orders from western clothing brands were cancelled or suspended.
Many wealthy nations have introduced multi-billion-dollar economic stimulus packages to support business and workers, but most developing nations lack the financial firepower to follow suit. The UN estimates that nearly half of all jobs in Africa could be lost. Micah Olywangu, a taxi driver and father of three from Nairobi, Kenya, who has not had a fare since the lockdown closed the airport, bars and restaurants, told Oxfam that "this virus will starve us before it makes us sick."
Delivering the $2.5 trillion the UN estimates is needed to support developing countries through the pandemic would also require an additional $500 billion in overseas aid. This includes $160 billion which Oxfam estimates is needed to boost poor countries' public health systems and $2 billion for the UN humanitarian fund. Emergency solidarity taxes, such as a tax on extraordinary profits or the very wealthiest individuals, could mobilise additional resources.
"Governments must learn the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis where bailouts for banks and corporations were paid for by ordinary people as jobs were lost, wages flatlined and essential services such as healthcare cut to the bone. Economic stimulus packages must support ordinary workers and small businesses, and bail outs for big corporations must be conditional on action to build fairer, more sustainable economies," added Vera.
Notes to editors
The World Bank and IMF 2020 Spring meetings will take place virtually from 17-19 April. G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors will meet virtually on 15 April.
Download Dignity Not Destitution: An Economic Rescue Package for All.
In 2018 there were 3.4 billion people living on less than $5.5 per day according to the World Bank. Researchers used mathematical models to predict how many more people would fall below World Bank poverty lines of $1.90, $3.30 and $5.50 a day based on a 5, 10 and 20 percent drop in GDP. A 20 percent drop in GDP would mean an estimated 434.4 million more people living on less than on $1.90 a day, 611.8 million more people living on less than $3.30 a day and 547.6 million more people on less than $5.50 a day. This represents rise between 6 percent and 8 percent on current levels.
News outlets are reporting that over 1 million garment workers in Bangladesh have lost their jobs as a result of orders being cancelled or suspended. The percentage of women working in the Garment industry in Bangladesh is from the World Bank.
Figures for Ghana from Diloa Jacob Bailey Athias of Development Pathways, based on UNDESA population figures.
Figures for Ethiopia from Development Finance International.
Oxfam is scaling up its cash transfer programming and food assistance in vulnerable communities across the globe --from poor urban settlements in Bangladesh to rural indigenous communities in Guatemala. Oxfam has been a leader in cash transfer programming for more than 20 years; in Yemen, we provide cash to families displaced by the conflict to buy food; in Colombia, we provide cash to Venezuelan migrants on the move; and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which faced the world's second largest Ebola epidemic in history, we distribute cash and vouchers to allow the most vulnerable households to buy food and basic necessities.
Oxfam International is a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. We are working across regions in about 70 countries, with thousands of partners, and allies, supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis.
LATEST NEWS
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Labor Department Finalizes Pro-Worker Rules on Overtime, Retirement Savings
"Democrats are delivering for working people!" declared Rep. Pramila Jayapal as the AFL-CIO noted that GOP ex-President Donald Trump "gutted the rules that required overtime pay for millions of workers."
Apr 23, 2024
Roughly 4.3 million U.S. workers will now be eligible for overtime pay under a new rule finalized Tuesday by President Joe Biden's Labor Department—in stark contrast to his Republican predecessor's rules that severely limited the number of workers who were eligible for required compensation when they worked more than 40 hours per week.
Under the new rule, employers will be required to pay overtime premiums to salaried workers who work more than standard full-time hours if they earn less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year.
Former President Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, may now have to defend his 2020 rule that set the overtime pay threshold at just $35,500 per year, leaving out millions of workers.
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) noted that the updated rule was "a major piece" of the Executive Action Agenda released by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which she chairs.
"This is a HUGE pro-worker initiative by President Biden," said Jayapal. "Democrats are delivering for working people!"
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, who Biden has nominated to fill the role permanently, said it is "unacceptable" that lower-paid workers "are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay," while hourly workers are eligible for overtime pay.
"This rule will restore the promise to workers that if you work more than 40 hours in a week, you should be paid more for that time," said Su. "The Biden-Harris administration is following through on our promise to raise the bar for workers who help lay the foundation for our economic prosperity."
The Labor Department posted a chart on social media showing how under Trump's policy, only workers who earn less than $688 per week are eligible for required overtime pay. The full rule is set to go into effect in January 2025.
The chart offers a "good split screen with the GOP," saidSlate reporter Mark Joseph Stern.
"It isn't just that Trump's Department of Labor fought overtime pay—it's also that Trump appointed anti-labor judges who are about to block Biden's new rule," he said.
The former Republican president's appointed judges could also block a new Federal Trade Commission rule introduced on Tuesday, which blocks companies from including noncompete clauses in workers' contracts.
"Both reforms happened because of Biden and in spite of Republicans," said HuffPost labor reporter Dave Jamieson.
Along with the overtime rule, the Labor Department announced a new policy aimed at safeguarding people's retirement savings from their financial advisers' conflicts of interest.
The finalized retirement security rule requires "trusted investment advice providers to give prudent, loyal, honest advice free from overcharges," said the department. "These fiduciaries must adhere to high standards of care and loyalty when they recommend investments and avoid recommendations that favor the investment advice providers' interests—financial or otherwise—at the retirement savers' expense."
"Under the final rule and amended exemptions, financial institutions overseeing investment advice providers must have policies and procedures to manage conflicts of interest and ensure providers follow these guidelines," the agency said.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, said the nation's largest labor federation has "been pushing for the fiduciary and overtime rules since the Obama administration."
"It's really this simple," said Shuler. "Every worker deserves their fair share of the wealth they help create and every worker deserves to make sure their hard-earned money is secure."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular