Hong Kong’s Poor Families Doubled Amid Pandemic, Protests
The number of low-income households in Hong Kong has almost doubled over the past two years, amid protests and the pandemic.
(Bloomberg) -- The number of low-income households in Hong Kong has almost doubled over the past two years, underscoring the damage wrought by a historic recession amid protests and the pandemic. At the end of March 2021, there were almost 302,000 people living in “low-income households,” which means they had a monthly income of less than HK$9,100 ($1,173) according to a Hong Kong government report. The proportion of those people who were in full-time employment fell compared to a year earlier, with 61% of the “economically active” population in those households either looking for work, or underemployed. “All these reflected the deterioration in the labor market as compared with the same period last year,” the report said.
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