Oral East AfricaOver 20 million Kenyans were poor in 2022; that is nearly half the country’s population and coincidentally the size of the entire workforce, could not meet their basic food and non-food needs.
According to the 2024 Gross County Product (GCP) Report, the overall poverty headcount rate for individuals was at 39.8 percent, nearly as high as the rates during the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown, when poverty in the country hit 42.9 percent.
Poverty rates were higher in rural areas (42.9 percent) compared to urban areas (33.2 percent) and in the Lake Region the counties of Nandi, Kericho and Kisumu were actually doing worse than during the Covid-19 shutdown.
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Kenya’s poor were hit the hardest during the Covid-19 pandemic which saw most casual laborers laid off and were affected by the curbs imposed by the government to contain the spread of the virus.
In 2020, about 1.2 million Kenyans sunk into extreme poverty on the fallout of the Covid-19 crisis, surviving on less than $1.9 a day.
post pandemic recovery
The low skilled workers also faced lower pay even as jobs resumed as companies sought to contain costs of production as the Uhuru Kenyatta regime relaxed Covid-19 curbs.
But even then, nearly half a million Kenyans were lifted out of extreme poverty as the country bounced back from the ravages of the Covid-19 crisis with the World Bank macro poverty outlook estimating the country’s extreme poor reduced from 19.2 million or 35.7 percent the population in 2020 to 18.8 million or 34.3 per cent in 2021.
President William Ruto took over on a promise of jobs to the youth and ending poverty, with the country experiencing a youth bulge that could deliver a demographic dividend if harnessed economically.
In the UDA Party manifesto, President Ruto had noted that every year, 800,000 young Kenyans join the workforce after completing school, college and university.
The corporate sector, reads the manifesto, is only able to employ 50,000 or so. Another 100,000 to 150,000 fortunate ones are able to find stable jobs in successful small businesses.
"The others, more than half a million, swell the ranks of frustrated young people eking precarious livelihoods as hawkers, casual labourers and subsistence farmers who hardly produce," reads the manifesto.
Tax austerity 2.0
However, President Ruto’s government seems to have reversed the good fortunes when his Kenya Kwanza government turned from their manifesto promising jobs and instead adopted President Uhuru Kenyatta’s tax austerity and even imposed higher levels of taxation and income deductions.
Poverty has become worse, hitting homes at a time when inflation and climate change impact is also being felt in households, especially in vulnerable arid and semi-arid areas.
Nationally, Counties in the arid and semi-arid regions generally recorded higher poverty rates compared to other regions, with over two-thirds of their populations living below the poverty line, such as Turkana (82.7 percent), Mandera (72.9 percent), and Samburu (71.9 percent).
On the other hand, urban counties like Nairobi City and Mombasa had the lowest poverty rates at 16.5 percent and 27.0 percent, respectively, reflecting better access to economic opportunities and services.
“These statistics underscore the need for targeted interventions to address poverty in the most affected counties, particularly in the northern and northeastern regions of Kenya,”
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