SA’s shrinking middle class
SA’s middle class has shrunk — and is poorer than it was before 2020, writes Donwald Pressly
29 July 2021 - 09:00
SA’s middle class is under siege. At the start of the lockdown last year, it was told bluntly: commit “class suicide”. Since then it has imploded, shedding at least 200,000 jobs while South Africans in the working-class category have grown by about the same number, as thousands of middle-class people suffered income collapse.
President Cyril Ramaphosa himself put overall jobs lost as a consequence of the lockdown at 2-million, though the University of Cape Town Liberty Institute reports that it could be even higher: about 2.3-million...
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