According to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), two-thirds of households’ income has not recovered to pre-COVID-19 levels.
According to the GSS’s COVID-19 Households and Jobs Tracker Wave 3, only 26.7 percent of respondents indicated that their total household income remained constant compared to the period preceding COVID-19, March 16, 2020.
According to the GSS, 5.1 percent of respondents reported an increase in total income, while 68.2 percent reported a decrease in household income.
“Of the various sources of income, non-farm family business income saw the greatest decrease.” Only 4.4 percent of households with income from a non-farm family business reported an increase in income, while 77.3 percent reported a decrease.
- A town hall meeting on the E-levy will be held today, according to the government.
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“The 4.2% of households who got income from pension saw the smallest change of this income source. 76.7% reported no change in pension income, 13.0% a reduction and 10.3% an increase.
The tracker also indicated that borrowing became more frequent coping strategies in 2021.
Approximately eighty-seven percent, 86.7%, of households used some sort of coping strategy to deal with the negative effects of COVID-19 since March 2020.
“The most common coping strategies included relying on savings (43.0%) and reducing food consumption (42.9%). Respondents reported that most types of coping strategies were used more often in 2020 than in 2021.
“The exception to this is the borrowing of friends and family and the use of credited purchases.”
