Nearly 3 in 10 Pakistanis now live below poverty line amid deepening economic crisis
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Nearly 3 in 10 Pakistanis now live below poverty line amid deepening economic crisis")
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Pakistan's poverty rate rose to 28.9 per cent in 2024–25, leaving nearly 3 in 10 living below the poverty line due to high inflation, economic shocks, and rural-urban disparities.
Nearly three in every 10 Pakistanis are now living below the poverty line, reflecting the severe impact of years of economic instability, high inflation and weak growth.
The analysis, published by Dawn, based on Pakistan's latest Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) and Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM), found that the national poverty rate rose to 28.9 per cent in 2024-25, up from 21.8 per cent in 2018-19.
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The findings come after almost six years without an updated household survey, offering one of the most comprehensive assessments of how successive economic shocks have affected living standards across the country.
According to the report, rural communities have been hit hardest. Poverty in rural Pakistan increased by around eight percentage points over the period, compared with an increase of about six percentage points in urban areas, underscoring the growing economic divide between villages and cities.
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The analysis attributed the sharp rise in poverty to a combination of repeated balance-of-payments crises, the Covid-19 pandemic, persistently high inflation, surging commodity prices and prolonged economic adjustment measures.
It also described the period as a "lost decade" for many households. Inflation-adjusted household incomes and consumption declined across two consecutive survey cycles, suggesting that many Pakistanis are financially worse off today than they were several years ago, despite intermittent periods of economic growth.
The latest figures paint a stark picture of the challenges facing Pakistan's economy, where repeated crises have eroded purchasing power and pushed millions more people below the poverty line, according to the Dawn analysis.
