Abstract
Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial for estimating poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but many developing countries lack such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates for South Africa, simulating incomes in pre-pandemic household surveys using contemporary labour market data to account for job losses between 2020 Q1 and 2021 Q4. Improving on much of the existing literature, we use observed rather than simulated shocks and allow for uneven impacts of the pandemic by employment sector and demographic characteristics. We present three updating methods, each of which give primacy to a different data source, and include diagnostic and robustness checks. Giving primacy to the 2017 National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) Wave 5 produces the largest estimate of pandemic-period job-loss-induced poverty: a headcount ratio increase at the upper-bound poverty line of 5.2 percentage points (3.1 million people/13 per cent) and poverty gap increase of 3.8 percentage points (21 per cent). Giving primacy to the contemporaneous Quarterly Labour Force Surveys (QLFS) data produces the lowest estimated change: a headcount ratio increase of 3.0 percentage points (1.8 million people/7 per cent) and poverty gap increase of 2.5 percentage points (12 per cent). Giving primacy instead to the official 2014/15 Living Conditions Survey (LCS) results in poverty increases between these outer bounds. Simulating receipt of a new pandemic-period social assistance cash transfer, the Special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress social grant, substantially mitigates poverty effects, with a poverty headcount increase of 1.1–3.4 percentage points and a poverty gap increase of 0.2–1.5 percentage points.