Lebanese poverty rates swell across income groups

ENAR

Over the past year, Lebanon has experienced an onslaught of multiple growth shocks including a banking and exchange-rate crisis, an outbreak of COVID-19, and an explosion that has claimed large swathes of Beirut’s commercial centre and a bulk of trade facilities. These new shocks add to the longer-standing economic and financial crunch that have swelled Lebanon’s poverty rate at the upper, or moderate, national poverty line ($14/day), as well as the lower, or extreme, poverty line ($8.5/day) identified by the United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Lebanon. Since the start of this year, the moderate poverty head count is projected to have nearly doubled, and extreme poverty nearly tripled. At the same time, the mass of the middle- income and wealthy individuals, as estimated from the full distribution of incomes and wealth in Lebanon, has contracted due to the collapse of the banking system and out-migration. This implies